Fate
by mobelle91
Summary: A chance happening one year earlier had left Scotty McCreery and Rhiannon Freed scratching their heads. Thrown together yet again they wonder if it was fate, or sheer luck? I don't own Scotty McCreery or any of the songs I use in this story. Only for fun
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I had finally reached my last house of the day. I just needed to get some information from them and I could finally get off the hot streets of Garner, North Carolina and into some air conditioning. As I walked up to the house I noticed a brown truck sitting in the drive way and baseballs littering the front yard, at least someone appeared to me home. As I neared the door I tried to muster up my most charming smile I could manage after going door to door all day asking people these ridiculous questions for my boss. Once I got to the door I sent up a quick prayer and rang the doorbell. Once I heard the door open I immediately started into my pre-determined speech.

"Hello sir, My name is Rhiannon Freed and I'm with Recovery Rehab in Raleigh-"

As I looked up I noticed that the man I thought had answered the door was actually just a kid. Not just any kid though, but a very, _very _familiar kid.

"I'm sorry but I need to speak with the head of the household, are your parents home?" I asked him.

"No, they won't be back for a little bit." His deep southern drawl answered me. Great, I thought, this is the last house I need and I can't even get the information I need. He must have noticed the look of defeat on my face because he quickly followed up his response.

"They should be back here in a little bit if you really need to speak with them."

"I do, actually," I responded to him, "I just have to ask them a few questions about y'alls family for my job."

"Are you selling something?" he asked.

"No" I answered back. He seemed to be summing me up when he said, "Alright, come on in. You can wait for them here. You look exhausted anyways; I'll get you a glass of sweet tea."

I just stared at him for a second, not actually believing that him, of all people, was inviting me, a perfect stranger, into his house. Finally composing myself I stepped over the threshold. As he shut the door he said, "My name is Scotty, by the way, Scotty McCreery."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Of course I knew who he was, I only had his entire cd committed to memory, had meet him the previous year, and was absolutely positive I would never see him in person again. But here I was, standing in the front hall of his family's house with him.

"Oh, nice to meet you, as I said, my name is Rhiannon." I said, trying to take in my surroundings. He gestured the way towards the kitchen and started towards it. As we walked down the hall I looked at the numerous pictures on the wall, to my surprise there was only one to give hint to the fact that an American Idol winner lived here, the picture of him actually winning.

"So do you usually invite strange people into your house like this?" I said, trying to break the awkward silence I could feel growing. Once we reached the kitchen he motioned for me to sit down at a bar stool as he got out two glasses and filled them both with sweet tea.

"As a general rule of thumb, no," he responded after taking swig of tea, "but, firstly, you seem harmless, secondly, you seemed exhausted."

"And being the southernly gentleman that you are you just had to invite me in for sweet tea." I added on.

"Well, I figured anyone with an accent like that would be used to southern hospitality." I took slight offence to that.

"I do not have an accent!" As I said it I could hear my voice break slightly on the 'e'. All he did was smirk as he took another drink of tea.

"Okay, maybe I have a slight one, can't help it growing up right above the mason-dixon." I said defeated.

"Ah, it's alright," he said in his thick accent, "so, if you don't mind me asking, what are you going door-to-door for?"

After I took a long sip of tea I answered, "I'm a Physical Therapy Assistant over at Recovery Rehab in Raleigh. My boss wanted me to come over here to Garner to see how great of a need your town has for an outpatient rehab facility. As the new girl, I got selected to come over here and go door-to-door asking people how often they get knee-replacements and such. Your household is the last one I need though."

"Wow, that sounds like fun," He said sarcastically, "so, seeing as how you got a good look at the town, what do ya think of it? It's small, but it's nice, right?"

"Small? I come from a town with only one street and population of about 350. This is a city to me!" I said with a chuckle thinking of my hometown. "But I like Garner, it does seem really nice. It was hard to concentrate on it too much though with the heat."

"350? Are you serious? Wow, we probably do seem like a city to you." About this time I hear the garage door opening outside. He must have noticed to because he said, "That'll be momma and dad."

**Author's note: Hello! I hope you all are enjoying the story. Feel free to review and give me pointers. I'm going to try and add a new chapter at least every day or every couple of days.**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

_Scotty's Point of View_

"That'll be momma and dad." I announced as I heard the garage door go up. I saw a momentary flash of worry cross her face as she started fidgeting with the ring on her ring finger. I was the one who had to worry though, I was sure to get lectured for letting a stranger into our house. I just couldn't help it though. I could tell that she was exhausted as she stood our front porch, and it didn't seem that she even recognized me, which was very rare. As I watched more nervousness start to fill her blue-grey eyes my mom and dad walked from the garage.

"Scott Cooke McCreery, how many times have I told you not to leave your baseballs out in the-" my mom stopped as she noticed the unfamiliar girl sitting at our kitchen bar, "And who is this?"

"This is Rhiannon Freed, she's a physical therapy assistant from over in Raleigh. She came to ask us a few questions." At this Rhiannon seemed to muster up some courage and jumped up from her bar stool and introduced herself to my bewildered parents. She started in with her speech about opening the rehab center here in Garner. As she talked my parents seemed to relax a little towards her.

I watched her as she asked them questions about our family's medical history, how many times a year we seek therapy and such. From the moment I opened the door and looked at her I knew she looked familiar. I see thousands of people all the time, at shows, meet and greets, all sorts of places. But, rarely do faces stick with me, but hers did. For the life of me though, I can't figure out where I know her from.

I don't even realized they are finished until I hear my dad ask her, "you seem awful young to be a therapy assistant. If you don't mind me asking, how old are you?" I had wondered the same thing but I couldn't figure out how to ask her without sounding weird.

"Oh, no, I don't mind. I'm 21 years old. I was able to get into the PTA program one year out of high school. I just graduated a few weeks ago." She said with obvious pride.

"And are you from North Carolina?" my mom asked her.

"No ma'am. I'm from a little town in southeast Missouri." She replied.

"Well how on earth did you get all the way out here?" I couldn't believe my parents were grilling her like this. But she didn't seem to mind.

"I have some family that lives out this way. They actually live near Asheville but it's still close enough that if I need anything I can call them up."

"Well," my dad said with astonishment on his face, "you seem like a very responsible young lady. I hope y'all open that facility over here so maybe we can see some more of you."

"I would like that too. Raleigh is a nice city, but I think I would prefer the small-ness of Garner." She said, "I should be going now though, I have to get all this information back to my boss."

My parents said that they understood and told her they hoped to see her again and I offered to walk her to the door. After she had said good-bye to them and started towards the hallway I saw my dad mouth something to me that looked like 'number'. I was way ahead of him.

"So did you walk all the way from Raleigh?" I joked with her.

"No," she said as she rolled her eyes, "my car is parked down the block." I hollered to mom and dad that I was going to walk her down the block to her car. I thought I heard her give out a little sigh. As we walked out the front door I tried to think of how to get her number from her and to find out where I know her from. I noticed that in the sunlight she had some red in her otherwise brown hair, pretty.

"So do you think you all will open the facility here?" I asked her.

She thought for a moment, "I bet so. Based on the number of athletes in the town, there are liable to be lots of injuries. So yeah, I see a need for one here."

I thought about that for a second and realized she was right. "Hey, I was wondering…" I started having no clue where I was heading with the question.

"Yes?"

"Never mind." I said realizing I was going to ask her if we had meet before, but suddenly having a feeling I shouldn't.

"Not never mind, what were you going to ask me?" she demanded. I tried to think of something to say.

"I was just wondering how I was going to find out if you end up working here in Garner." Nice, one Scotty, get her number from this line. She seemed to pick up on it though. By now we had reached her car. Without having answered me she unlocked the car and set her stuff inside. I watched her as she digged around the console until she produced a post-it note and a pen. I saw her scratch something on it.

"Well if I do get re-located here it won't be for months. But here's my number anyways. You know, if you ever have any pressing questions about physical therapy." She said handing me the paper with a sly smile.

"Could I ask you about stuff other than therapy?" I ask a little nervously.

"Sure you can do whatever you want with it, after all, you are an American Idol winner." She said as she got in her car to drive away.

So, she had recognized me, I thought as I walked back towards the house, but why can't I remember her?


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

_Rhiannon's Point of View_

That afternoon's events were still running through my brain as I dropped the information about Garner off at the office. As I walked out the door, I heard my boss as he said how he sees a great need in Garner for a rehab facility. I barely noticed that one of Scotty's songs came on my iPod as I drove back to my little apartment.

I plopped down on our couch with a heavy sigh. I still couldn't believe that I had given my cell number to Scotty McCreery, _Scotty friggin McCreery_. He was only my favorite country singer. I knew when I decided to move out to North Carolina that he lived here, but I thought that there was no way that I would ever run into him. As I ran through the events in my mind, my roommate came in the door.

"I swear, being grown up is not all it's cracked up to be." She declared as she walked through the door. Nicole St. Joe was the epitome of a girl who refused to grow up. A few weeks ago her parents put her up in this apartment and forced her to get a job. Her parents also thought it would be a good idea to get a roommate to help with the bills. So that's how she got stuck with me.

"That's why Taylor Swift wrote that song _Never Grow Up_." I said to her mindlessly, Nicki hates country music, so I always tried to quote it as much as possible around her.

"Yeah, and she also broke up with Taylor Lautner, so I doubt I'm taking advice from her" she replied, rummaging through the fridge. I had to laugh at her; the girl had lived in Raleigh her whole life and still hated country music. It made no sense to me.

"So, what was this big news you said you had to share with me? It had to be pretty big since you text me fifty million times about it." She asked as she started supper. Nicki may not be good for much, but the girl can cook. I debated on whether or not to tell her about meeting Scotty, fearing she would make fun of me.

"Yeah, so you know that one singer I like so much? Scotty McCreery?" I said

"Oh, the one you're in love with? Yeah, you've mentioned him a time or two. What about him?" I rolled my eyes at her; I was not in love with him. So I told her the story about how I had gone to his house and ended with him asking for my number.

"Are you kidding me? That's so crazy! Did you give it to him?" As if to answer her question my phone started ringing, displaying a number I didn't know. Nicki and I just stared at each other. She reached out and grabbed my phone, answered it, and put it on speaker.

"H-h-hello?" I stammered out.

"Hi, is this Rhiannon?" a deep voice asked.

"Yes, sir, this is her. Who is this?" Nicki smacked my arm, of course I knew who it was.

"It's Scotty" he answered back.

"Oh, hey Scotty. What's up?" Nicki smacked my arm again, according to her I wasn't very smooth with guys.

"Nothing much, just wanted to make sure you made it back to Raleigh okay."

"Yes, I did. Thank you for asking. You didn't get into too much trouble for inviting a strange girl in your house did you?" The look his parents gave me once they realized I was there didn't go unnoticed. I couldn't blame them though, if my son was a hit country singer I wouldn't want him inviting strange people into the house either.

He chuckled, "No, not too much. Just the usual don't invite strangers into the house speech. They weren't too mad though once they realized you weren't a psycho stalker."

"Yeah," I laughed, "I was scared for a second there that your mom was gonna go all 'momma-bear' on me and throw me out."

He laughed out loud at that, "Nah, they actually really liked you. That's why I'm calling actually. My parents and I were wondering if you wanted to come over and have dinner with us tomorrow evening."

I had to pause for a second to make sure this was really happening. I was broken out of my thoughts with Nicki hitting me on the arm yet again, "Yeah, uh, I mean yes. I would love to come have dinner with you and your family."

"Alright then, do you remember how to get to the house?"

"Yes."

"Great, we'll probably start eating about 6, so come on over about 5:30." He said. I thought his voice sounded a little less nervous, but it was probably just my imagination. I told him I would see him then and then we hung up. I stood at our kitchen counter, frozen in shock as Nicki did a little dance around the kitchen.

"Why the heck are you so excited? Glad you won't have to cook for me tomorrow?" I asked her, very confused.

"No, I'm just really, really happy for you. That Scotty-boy is a little cutie." She said as I shot her a bewildered look.

"Don't worry hun, I'm not gonna try and go after him. He's 19, I'm 26, no chance of it."

"Then why are you so happy for me?" I still couldn't understand her excitement.

"I'm happy for you because you deserve this. Look, you moved out here a little less than a month ago. You work all the time and then you come straight back here or else you go to the library. That's not normal for a twenty-one year old. You need a guy." She stated crossing her skinny little tan arms. I knew she was right, she usually was about my social life.

I just looked at her, silently admitting she was right, "Hmp," I responded. As I walked back to the couch I threw back at her, "you're helping me pick out something to wear tomorrow."

She laughed, no doubtedly shaking out her blonde hair, "Well that's a given."

_Scotty's Point of View_

After I hung up the phone I let out a big yell, "Yes!"

I heard my dad yell from the living room, "So I'm guessing she said yes?" I composed myself before I walked in the living room telling him that she did.

"Hey," I said to him, "we don't know her do we?"

"No, I don't think so" he replied, "Why, she look familiar to you?"

"Yeah, yeah she did. And I can't figure out where I know here from." I said rubbing my forehead.

"I think your fansite keeps an archive of different pictures that fans have uploaded. Why don't you get on to look and see if she's on there? You probably just met her at a show recently or something." He said, focusing back onto the Red Sox game.

I headed up to my room eager to get on and figure out where I know this girl from. As I fired up my laptop I found myself thinking how natural it looked for her to be sitting in our kitchen. I got on the website and started searching. Geez, I thought, I didn't realized I had met this many people in the past two years since Idol. I searched for about an hour until momma called me down for supper. To our surprise, my sister Ashley had gotten home a few days from school. Looks like Rhiannon will get to meet the whole gang then, I thought.

"Scotty met him a girl today." I heard my mom say as we started dishing out our dinner.

"Oh, he sure did," Ashley said with a smile, "look at his neck going red. You asked her out yet?"

"Geez Ash, I just met her today! But to answer your question, kind of." I said, shoveling food into my mouth, hoping they would drop it.

"Kind of? How do you kind of ask a girl out?" she said back

Luckily dad came to the rescue, "We invited her over for dinner tomorrow night." He then retold the story about how we had met Rhiannon to my sister. "And apparently," he said after finishing, "Scotty knows her already."

"I didn't say I know her," I retorted, "I just said that she looked familiar is all."

"You know, I did too when I first saw her." My mom said. I breathed a little easier, if my mom recognized her maybe I wasn't going crazy. After we finished our dinner I headed back up to my room to continue my search. The archives only went back to June of the year before. Darn, I thought, I know I had a few shows in May of last year. I leaned back on the pillows in defeat. As I did this Ashley knocked on the door and stepped in.

"Looking for your mystery girl?" she asked sitting on the bed next to me.

"She's not a mystery girl, I just recognize her and I'm trying to figure out where I know her from." I said.

"Well, I have an idea about how to figure it out. It may be a little out there but it may just work." She said. I asked her what it was, eager to try anything. She looked at me with a serious look on her face and said, "Ask her when she comes over tomorrow."

My sister, the genius. "Thanks Ash, you're a real help." I said sarcastically.

"I'm serious!" She said, "I don't understand why you're stressing yourself out about this when you can just ask her tomorrow." Ashley was right though, I was unnecessarily stressing out over this. Rhiannon seemed like an honest girl, I sure she'll tell me if I ask her.

As Ashley got up and walked out the door I heard her say, "or you can just google her." I decided I would wait though. I wanted to get to know this girl, but not through a computer screen. That night while I was asleep, I kept having this dream of a girl. I had had the dream many times. It was of a girl walking towards me. Her face was never recognizable and I could never tell where we were at. There were people standing all around us, but the focus was always on her. Tonight though, her face was recognizable. As soon as I put her name to the face I woke up. It was Rhiannon.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

_Rhiannon's Point of View_

"Nicki, I am not wearing that shirt. I'm going to have dinner with his family, not to some night club with you." I said to her. She was trying to get me into a very low cut shirt with an even shorter skirt.

"Oh, it isn't that bad! Plus I would never wear this to the club." She said as she starting going through my clothes again. She eventually settled on me wearing a floral print navy dress with a jean jacket (sleeves rolled up since it was pretty warm out) and my cowboy boots. Nicki tried to talk me out of the boots, but I fought for them. If a piece of clothing can give me confidence, it's my boots. She curled my hair for me and did my make-up very naturally.

"Perfect," she said as I headed towards the door. "Oh! Wait!" She ran back into my room and came back out with something in her hand. "You can't forget this." She said as put my cross necklace around my neck. I can't believe I almost forgot it. I must be really nervous.

As I got into my car I told myself to breathe, it was just dinner. I turned on the radio to try and calm myself down as I drove. I flipped through the stations until I found something that sounded country. The song I heard was just ending as another came on.

"_I know I'm still young, but I know how I feel…" _Are you kidding me, I thought. I immediately flipped it to another station that was country also. The song that was on ended and another song started up.

"_In a water tower town, everybody waves…" _Okay, this isn't funny. I turned off the radio and turned on my ipod.

"_The trouble with gir-" _That's it. I turned off my ipod and drove the rest of the way in silence.

As I drove up to the house I looked at the time on my dash, 5:25. I'm always early for everything. I looked around for signs that I was at the right house. I didn't see the brown truck, but there were still baseballs in the yard. I sent up a quick prayer that it was the right house as I answered the door. Once the door opened I breathe a sigh of relief as Judy McCreery stood in the doorway drying her hands off on a towel.

"Well hello there sweetie! Come on in!" She said as she ushered me into the house. "I just sent Scotty down to the store to pick up some milk. Mike! Ashley! Rhiannon is here! Did I say your name right? He should be back any minute."

As she finished up I saw Scotty's dad and older sister come into the front hallway.

"It's nice to meet you, I'm Ashley, Scotty's sister. Since Scotty isn't here I feel safe sayin that he's been talking about coming over all day and nothing else." She said as she shook my hand. I highly doubted that her statement was true. I shook hands with Mike telling him it was nice to see him again. Judy pulled into the kitchen to help her with dinner.

"I hope you don't mind to help me a little bit, Lord knows my own children won't!" she said as she passed me an apron.

"Oh, no, I don't mind to help at all." I said putting on the apron. I prayed she wouldn't have me do anything too complicated, I wasn't much of a cook. As she was telling me what she wanted me to do, Scotty came through the door.

"Mom, I couldn't find any cornbread mix. They were sold out of it. But I got the-" He stopped when he noticed me standing in his kitchen breading porkchops. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were here already."

"Some host you are, Scotty. Not even here when your guest arrives?" his mom chastised him.

"Are you serious? You were the one who sent me down to the store!" he said.

"I'm only kidding son, calm your horses." His mom said taking the milk from him. "Why don't you make up for not being here when she arrived and take her on tour of the house?"

After I had removed the apron and washed my hands, Scotty started the tour.

"This in here is the living room, most of the time if the tv is on, it's on sports center." As he said this I noticed that the Cardinals were on the screen I stepped a little closer to see what the score was so far.

Mike noticed this, "You a St. Louis fan?"

"Oh yes sir, die hard."

"Even when they got rid of Pujols?"

I chuckled at that, "Yes sir, as my dad said, one player doesn't make the team, the team makes the team."  
"Well, you've got my approval already. Keep ahold of her son." Mike said pointing between me and Scotty.

"Wow, Dad, thanks. Come on, let me show you the rest of the house." Scotty said as he led me from the room. I wasn't sure, but I thought I saw his neck going red. From embarrassment? I was sure because he covered it up quickly as he led me down into the basement.

_Scotty's Point of View_

As we walked down the stairs to the basement with Rhiannon in front of me I was silently cursing my dad for his comment. I couldn't believe he said that! I barely even knew the girl. But that's my dad for you, he can sense stuff before others can.

"This is our basement. Me and my friends usually hang out down here when there isn't anything else going on. And there's a guest room and bathroom down here too." I told her as I watched her take in the room.

"Do you play piano also?" She said pointing to the old stand up on the far side of the room. Rhiannon started walking towards it as I answered her. "Not really, I try and fool around on it but I can never get the hang of it. You play?" To answer me she sat down and started playing a little. It sounded like something classical, she then floated into a familiar tune.

As she played it I found myself singing along, "_I cross my heart, and promise to give all I got to give to make all your dreams come true…" _Once she realized I was singing she started playing a little softer.

"Sorry, that's one of my favorite songs. It was actually the first song I taught myself on the piano." She said as a little pink flooded her cheeks.

"No, no you're fine. I like that song too. It was one of my favorites that I sang on Idol." I told her.

"Really? I was hoping you were going to sing it when I saw you in concert last year." She said, still pinging away at the keys. I saw my opening.

"You've seen me in concert?" I said, nudging her shoulder a little.

She nudged back, "I didn't go just to see you. I won tickets to see the whole show. I also got a meet and greet with Brad Paisley that night too."

"When was this?" I asked her.

"Last May," she replied. Even more pink flooded her cheeks as she said "I actually meet you that night also. My mom had surprised me with a meet and greet for your fan club too when I found out I won the contest."

It all came rushing back to me. I remembered that meet and greet. I remembered seeing her walking towards me once she reached the front of the line. As she walked towards me I remember my breath being taken away thinking how beautiful she was in her white sundress with the brown bow on it and another white bow in her hair. For the rest of the night I couldn't get her face out of my head. I thought about having my dad go out and find her to bring her backstage, but I decided against it.

I didn't want to admit to her now that I remembered meeting her, so I just said "Oh, yeah? So did you enjoy the show?"

"Yeah," she said, "it was one of the best shows I had seen in a while. That's saying something too, because I go to a lot of concerts"

"Really?" I said, "Who all have you seen?" As she started to name off all the artist she's seen my mom yelled down for us to come up for dinner.

After we had all settled in at the table with Rhiannon directly across from me, Ashley to her right, Mom to my left, and Dad at the head of the table, Mom looked at Rhiannon and asked her to say the blessing.

"Oh, um, okay," She said looking nervous. I didn't understand why, but once she started the prayer I kind of understood why, "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: Bless us Oh Lord and these thy gifts which we are about to receive. From thy bounty through Christ Our Lord, Amen. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen." As she finished, she looked around at us nervously, "I'm sorry," She said, "I wasn't sure what prayer to say, so I just used our traditional one."

"Oh, no, honey, you were fine." My dad said as he scooped some food onto his plate. "What religion are you?"

"I'm Catholic" she responded.

"Really? That's nice, as I always say, as long as you believe in God, whatever religion you are is fine with me." My mom said giving Rhiannon a reassuring smile.

After we all had our food on our plates we ate in silence for a while. I kept finding myself looking up at Rhiannon, making sure she wasn't uncomfortable or anything.

"So, Scotty," my sister piped up, "did you ask Rhiannon were you know her from yet?" Really, I thought, is it my family's game plan tonight to totally embarrass me in front of her?

Luckily, Rhiannon came to the rescue, "Yes, I went to his meet and greet last May in St. Louis."

"That's where we saw you!" my mom added. "I thought you looked familiar too, but I wasn't going to say anything in case I was wrong."

"Yes, ma'am. I remember you all being there actually. I thought it was really cool how you all tour with Scotty." Rhiannon said.

After that we all just made small talk, asking Rhiannon about her job, how she was liking North Carolina, and just different stuff like that. Once the meal was over we all stood up and helped Mom clear off the table. Rhiannon tried to help, but no one would let her since she was the guest. I thought it was cute how she wrinkled her nose in frustration.

"Alright Miss Freed, I know you're a Cardinals fan, but what do you think about baseball in general?" my dad asked her as he led her and Ashley into the living room, leaving me to help Mom with the dishes.

Once we were in the kitchen, my mom asked me, "So Scotty, are you going to ask her out on a real date? Or are you just going to keep asking her over for family dinner?"

"Mom, really?" I couldn't believe she was asking me this.

"Yes, really. It's pretty dang obvious you like the girl. She's an amazing girl and in my opinion I'd think you were a fool if you don't ask her out." She said putting her hands on her hips.

"I know, and I do like her, I just don't know if she likes me." I said admitting what I had been thinking.

"Well from what I can tell she does. Now, go on in the living room. I can finish this up." With that she sent me out.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

_Rhiannon's Point of View_

As I saw Scotty walk into the living room Ashley pulled me into standing position from the couch.

"Scotty, we have a problem." Ashley declared.

"What would that be?" Scotty asked with a worried look crossing his face. I couldn't believe Ashley was making such a big deal out of this.

"This girl has not had Bojangles yet. We have to take her. Now." She said pulling me towards Scotty.

I heard him and Mike start chuckling. "Ash, we just ate. We don't have to take her now." He said shaking his head.

"Then we can just get some ice cream! This poor girl needs to experience this. Plus, we can give her an official tour of the town at the same time." Ashley said. The tour of the town actually didn't sound like a bad idea. Scotty seemed to be thinking the same time when he agreed.

As we started walking towards Scotty truck I started heading towards my car. Ashley noticed me doing this and asked me where I was going. "I'm just going to get my wallet" I said.

"Oh no you're not!" Scotty said, talking me by the elbow and leading me back towards the truck.

Ashley giggled, "Don't even bother trying to argue with him Rhiannon. The boy hasn't hardly let us pay for anything the past two years." She climbed in the back telling me that I could ride up front. We pulled out of the drive and started off through town.

As we drove, Scotty and Ashley took turns pointing out various hot spots in the town. The church, school, supermarket, even the ball park where Scotty played while he was in high school.

"I always thought that was really cool." I said as we pasted the ball park, immediately regretting it. I didn't seem to have filter between my mouth and brain when I was around him.

"What's that?" Ashley asked from the backseat.

"Oh, just how Scotty stopped touring for a while last year so he could play ball." As I said it I stole a glance over at him. A smile crept onto his face and his chest seemed to puff out a little more. At least he didn't think I was weird for saying it.

We drove a little bit farther with the two of them still pointing various places to me. At least we pulled into the parking lot. It didn't look like anything special to me. Just like any other fast food place. As we walked in I noticed a loud group of about 5 or 6 boys, I was able to notice them because I soon as we walked in we were greeted with a chorus of "Scotty!" "McCreery! Where you been at boy?". Scotty waved over to the guys as he reached for his wallet.

"Here ya go ladies. Go on and get whatever you want and I'll meet you at the table with the guys." He told us as he handed us some money.

"Don't you want anything?" Ashley asked him.

"Nah" he replied walking over to his friends. "Oh well," Ashley said as she led me towards the counter. I wasn't sure what to get, and since I was still full from dinner, so I just got a medium strawberry shake. Once we got what we ordered Ashley headed towards the table. I hung back at the counter to order one more thing.

Once I got to the table I set the sweet tea down in front of Scotty. He gave me a confused look, "Payback," I told him, "for yesterday." He looked down as he shook his head then looked back up at me with that smile of his. "Thank ya ma'am" he said. He then scooted over to make room for me to sit next to him.

"Alright McCreery, the suspense is killing us. Who is this fine young lady you've got with you?" one of the boys said.

"This here is Rhiannon Freed. Rhiannon, this crew here are my friends. This is Jay, Kevin, Ryan, Evan, and Steve." Scotty said as he pointed each guy out to me. I told them all hi as I gave them a little wave. I was always nervous when I met new people.

"Now, how did a girl like you end up sending an evening with a goof like Scotty-boy here?" Kevin asked me.

"Ahhahahaha, not quite sure. He just lured me in with sweet tea I guess." I said. I thought I felt Scotty give me knee a little squeeze but I wasn't sure. He stretched his arms out behind me and rested them on the back of the chairs of either side of him.

"Man, you know I'm smooth with the ladies." He said with confidence. The whole group was silent for a moment and then busted out in laughter, me included for a little bit. This time it was my turn to give his knee a little squeeze.

"Alright, whatever you say man. Anyways, Saturday night I'm havin a bonfire out on the family's farm as a celebratory-welcome-to-summer sort of thing. You should definitely come." Ryan said, "Bring hillbilly girl there with ya." He added pointing at me.

"Hey!" I said, "I am not a hillbilly!"

"Yes you are," Evan retorted, "Just listen to that accent! That's a hillbilly mountain folk accent if I ever heard one!"

"I do not have an accent." I stated. But, yet again, my voice betrayed me and my accent seemed to thicken even more. I put my head down to hide my blush as they all chuckled at me. I felt Scotty's hand rub my shoulder as he leaned over and whispered so only I could hear that he liked the accent.

_Scotty's Point of View_

She had really surprised me with the sweet tea. But, at the same time I knew that sweet tea would always have special connection between us. I watched her as the guys took jabs at her accent. It wasn't a heavy one like ours, but it was slight and I noticed that when she got worked up it thickened.

"Well since you asked us so nicely, we may make an appearance." I tell Ryan.

"Did ya hear that boys? Mr. American Idol Champ _may _make an appearance!" Jay says in chastising tone. Even after two years, they still bust my chops. I don't mind though, it keeps me humble.

"Alright, with that we're leaving." I say as I motion for Rhiannon and Ashley to get up. My remark is met with a chorus of the guys calling me a party pooper and similar names. The guys finally eased up and we told them bye.

"Hey, I actually need you to drop me off at Janie's house" Ashley says as we get into the truck.

"That's all the way on the other side of town!" I protest, "I'm sure Rhiannon is wanting to get back to her car." I don't want her to go though.

"I don't mind," Rhiannon says from the passenger seat, I look over at her as she says "it'll give me a chance to see more of the town."

"It's agreed then, Scotty. Drive on!" Ashley ordered from the back seat. I sighed in defeated, but sent up a quick prayer of thanks that I was going to have some more alone time with Rhiannon.

After we dropped Ashley I looked at Rhiannon and said, "Alright, you have two choices for which way we take back to the house. We can take the east way or the west way."

She gave me a nervous glance before taking deep breath and saying, "Well, Missouri is the gateway to the west so, take me the west way!" I had to chuckle at her enthusiasm, especially since the west way was the longest way back to the house. I wasn't going to tell her that though.

We drove in silence for a little while with the radio on in the background. It was on a country station naturally. I immediately recognized the song and started singing along with it, "_Hey I'm a country man. I can wrastle hogs and gators with my two bare hands. Girl, you better move quick, I'm in high demand…" _As I sang I looked over at Rhiannon to see what she thought and saw her smiling and took that as a cue to keep going. I finished out the Luke Bryan song when another, even more familiar song came on. As I went to change the station from my song, Rhiannon smacked my hand away.

"Hey now!" She said, "I like this song!"

"Really?" I said, "This guy is annoying" I teased.

"Well I like him, pretty cute too" she said with a smile. She then started in singing the song, "_They smile that smile, and they bat those eyes. They steal you with hello, and kill you with goodbye…" _I continued to listen to her sing. She had a really nice voice. Towards the end of the song I joined in with her and we somehow turned it into a duet. The rest of the drive continued that way with us singing songs. We would sometimes take turns, sometimes make them duets. We weren't always on key, but it was so much fun I don't think either of us noticed.

Once we got back to the house I tried to think of a way to get her to stay. But, it was already 10:30 and I'm sure she had work in the morning. We got out of the truck and walked back into the house. My parents were sitting in the living with my dad watching tv and my mom reading a book.

"Hey, we're back. Ashley went over to Janie's though." I told them as we stood in the entry way.

"That's fine. So Rhiannon, how did you like Bojangles?" My dad asked her as he and my mom stood up.

"It was nice. I'll have to go back sometime and actually eat though." She responded.

"That's nice, I think we're going to head on up to bed. Rhiannon it was nice having you over. You come on over any time." My mom said as she gave Rhiannon a hug.

"Thank you, I had a really nice time too. I should get goin to. I have work tomorrow." She said as she gave my mom and dad a hug back.

"Alright, well you have a safe trip back and make sure to come back real soon. Scotty, make sure you walk her out to her car. Night you two." My dad said as he and mom headed up the stairs.

Once we were back outside I asked Rhiannon if she really had a good time. "Yeah," she said, "I really did. Did you?"

"Yeah" I said, "You know, I would like for you to come to that bon fire with me. If you don't want to though I understand." I prayed that she would say yes.

"I would love to go" she said as we reached her car.

"I was wondering though," well Scotty, here goes nothing, "If maybe you would like to go out with me tomorrow night?"

She stared back at me for a second; she seemed to be sizing me up to see if I was serious. "Yes," she finally said, "I would like that."

"Okay," I said, breathing a sigh of relief that she said yes. "I'll pick you up at 6, sound good?"

"Yeah," she said with a little laugh, "but don't you need something?"

I had no clue what she was talking about as she rummaged through her console and produced another post-it and pen. She scratched something down on it and handed it back to me, her address, duh McCreery. Might be helpful to have that.

"Okay, yeah, I do kind of need that." I said, very embarrassed.

"So where will we be going, so you know, I'll know how to dress" She asked.

I wasn't quite sure yet, but I had an idea and I wanted to keep it a surprise. "Dress comfortably, no need to dress up." I told her.

She just shook her head and said alright as she started to climb into her car. "Hey," I said to make her stop.

"Yes?" she said. I didn't know what I wanted to say, so I grabbed her hand hoping she would pull it away. Luckily she didn't. "Um, make sure you text me when you get home. You know, so I know you made it back alright."

She stared down at our embraced hands. "I will, thanks Scotty." With a squeeze of my hand she let go, got in her car and drove away. Leaving me with a fast beating heart and the reddest neck I've ever had.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

_Rhiannon's Point of View_

I absentmindedly ping at the keys on my little keyboard in my room. My mind wasn't on the notes; it was on what I was doing tonight. It wasn't the fact that I was going on a date with Scotty McCreery. It was the fact that I was going on a date with a guy that I really liked. Plus, the fact that I had no clue what we were doing, or where we were going. Scotty had told me to just dress comfortably, what the heck did that mean? That's what made me the most nervous, was that I was going to look like an idiot wherever he was taking me. So, I had put on a pair of blue jeans, a three-quarter length plaid shirt, and my sperrys; very comfortable and easy to run away in.

"Dude, seriously," I heard Nicki say from my doorway, "get off the piano, quit your worrying and just come sit out here with me. He'll probably be here pretty soon anyways." I looked up to see her leaning against my door. Why couldn't I be as calm as she is when she goes on dates? I felt the exact opposite though, a sweaty, shaky, nervous wreck. Since I didn't immediately get up she came over with a grunt and pulled me out of the room.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" I said as she pushed me down onto the couch, "I'm just so nervous. I just know that he's gonna realize I'm just-"

"You stop right there Rhiannon Loretta Freed," Nicki said hitting me on the arm, "The only thing that boy is gonna realize is how amazing you are, which I'm sure he already know or else he wouldn't be taking you out tonight."

I leaned against the couch with a heavy sigh. I looked at the clock, 5:50, ten minutes. I tried to focus on whatever Nicki was watching on tv. I wasn't really sure, it was some reality show she was keeping up with. I looked at the clock again, 5:59. About ten seconds later there was a knock at the door, I immediately felt my heart rate spike. Nicki pulled me into a standing position.

"Just remember," she said taking my face in her hands, "You are amazing. Just be yourself and there is no way this night won't be amazing for you. Now, go get your man!" She finished by spinning me around to face the door, smacking my butt, and then running into her room.

"Just a second!" I yelled at the door, grabbing my purse and giving my hair one last poof up. I walked over to the door, took a deep breath, and opened it. There he stood outside in the hallway. He looked so handsome. It was the simple, understated kind though. The kind that a simple black shirt and blue jeans can give a guy.

"Hey," I said, hoping my face wasn't too red. "Is this outfit 'comfortable' enough?"

"It's perfect." He said, "Ready to go?" I nodded my head yes and yelled back to Nicki that I was leaving. As I walked out the door I thought I heard her say "About time," but I wasn't sure.

We made our way out of the building and down to his truck. I went to reach for my door handle but Scotty beat me to it, of course he would open the door for me.

"So," I said as we buckled in, "where are we going?"

"Oh, just this little place I know." He said as he started driving along the streets of Raleigh. As he drove, we talked. We talked about all kinds of things; sports, music, our siblings, religion, whatever came to mind. While we talked though, I noticed that we had driven straight through Raleigh, into Garner, and then right back out again. The farther we got out of town I noticed that the houses were getting more and more spaced out. Eventually he turned down a small dirt road.

"I'm sorry and excuse my language, but where the heck are you takin me?" I said starting to get a little panicked.

He laughed at me, "We're almost there. Don't worry; I'm not takin you out here to sacrifice you or anything like that." I kept my mouth shut as we continued down the road taking it in. The more I looked at it, the narrow dirt road reminded me of my hometown that mainly consisted of dirt roads. We finally came around a bend that opened up to a clearing that contained a log cabin. It was very quaint with a single level and little front porch that had two rocking chairs on it.

"So what do you think?" Scotty asked as he put the truck in park. I felt a smile crawling across my face. True alone time, the one thing I thought impossible with him. But yet, he made it possible. I guess he took my smile as a cue that I was pleased so far because he got out of the truck and opened up my door for me. He took my hand as I got out and led me to the door. I realized I hadn't said anything yet so I threw out a quick "it's nice" to keep him from worrying.

"It's my family's. We use it when we want to go hunting or camping or just to escape." He told me as he unlocked the door. As we walked in I noticed that the lights were already on and that it looked freshly dusted.

"So, if you didn't bring me here to sacrifice me, what did you plan on us doing out here?" I asked looking around the room. It was a typical log cabin. It had a couple small couches, what appeared to be two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a small kitchen/dining room. I turned around to see what Scotty was doing. I saw him pulling something out of the stove and sitting it on the table.

"I made this earlier and brought it out here." He said with a nervous smile. I went over to the table to look at what he had prepared. It appeared to be some fried chicken, mashed potatoes, peas, and macaroni and cheese. Of course, he also had a jug of sweet tea.

"You really made this?" I asked skeptically, I hardly knew of any guys that cooked.

"Yes, I did. Well, I had a little help from momma, but for the most part I made it all myself. Even the tea." He responded with obvious pride on his face.

"Alright, I'll believe you Chef McCreery." I said walking around the table to stand next to him. "So, um, where are the plates?"

_Scotty's Point of View_

"You sit on down and I'll take care of it." I tell her as I pull out a chair for her. I could tell she was still a little skeptical about the whole date, but I wanted to be alone with her. Believe me, I wanted to show her off to the world, but I knew with me, it would be just that. I didn't want to subject her to that just yet. As she sat down in the chair I grabbed two plates and glasses from the cabinets. I prepared her a plate, careful not to let her food touch, something I noticed she did at dinner the previous night. Finally we both dug in. I watched her to see if she liked my cooking. She caught me.

"Okay, it's not terrible, but I can definitely tell a boy cooked this." She said.

"Thanks…I think?" I said with a laugh. I wasn't sure if it was a compliment or what.

"It's a compliment, trust me. The fact that you even made it makes it fifty times better." She said digging back into her food. We finished our meal in silence.

"Final verdict?" I asked her.

"Hmmmmm….." She said, rubbing her chin. "It was, much better than I expected." Rhiannon finished with a smile. "Now, this time, I am cleaning up the dishes." She declared as she jumped up, grabbing my plate and hers before I could protest. I just chuckled and put the little bit of leftover food in the oven; I'd come back later and get it.

"What's on the agenda now?" She asked as she dried her hands off.

"Now," I said, "we fish." I grabbed the two poles and tackle box sitting by the back door and led her out of it. The sun was starting to go down and was peeking out through the trees. There was a small pond that was a short walk away from the house.

"I should probably warn you," she said as I got our poles ready after we arrived at the pond, "I haven't been fishing since I was eight years old."

"Ah," I told her, handing her a pole, "you'll be fine. Here, I'll help you cast it out." I wrapped my arms around hers, placing my hands over hers on the pole. It felt amazing to be this close to her. Once the line was cast into the pond, it took everything I had to let her go to cast my own line out. We both took a seat on a log perched on the edge of the pond.

As we sat there we talked about various aspects of our lives. Rhiannon mainly did the talking since my life was so public and she already knew a lot about me.

"Okay, I'm tired of talking about me." She said. "Tell me about you."

I chuckled at her, "What do you want to know?"

She thought for a minute. "Well, since I already know a lot about you. Just answer these three questions for me. One, what is your favorite color? Two, what is your all-time favorite love song, meaning if you had to convince the love of your life to stay with you, what you use? Three, what is your favorite Disney movie?"

I started thinking about it and was about to answer when she continued, "Now, really think about your answers. Because, I believe that your answers to those questions define who you are."

"Wow," I said rubbing the back of my neck, "no pressure huh?" She just looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

"Well," I said, "my favorite color is blue, like the blue of a pond or a lake. My favorite love song would have to be _I Cross My Heart _by George Strait. And I'm gonna have to think a little bit on the movie."

"Hmp," she said, "Good answers so far th- Oh crap, did you feel that?" As soon as she said it I started feeling the raindrops. It had gotten dark, so the clouds must have moved in without us noticing. We gathered up the poles and tackle box as quick as possible and ran back to the cabin. Once we stepped through the door it started pouring rain.

"We better head back before it gets too bad." I tell her. We cleaned up the leftover food, putting most of it out back for the animals. I found an umbrella in one of the closets and we headed out to the truck huddled under it together. We both got into the truck relatively dry. Once we were buckled in I put the truck in gear and started pulling out of clearing.

"I hate that our date got cut short." Rhiannon said from the passenger seat. I agreed with her. I hated it too.

"Hold up," I said slowing the truck down, "It may have just gotten extended." A section of the road ahead of us was flooded over.

"There is no way you are driving your truck through that!" she said grabbing my arm.

"No, it wouldn't ever make it through that." I said.

"What are we gonna do?" she asked.

I sighed. There was only one option. "Looks like we're staying the night at the cabin." I said as I put in truck in reverse, backing it towards the cabin.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

_Rhiannon's Point of View_

"We're going to stay here? Tonight?" I asked as Scotty backed the truck up towards the cabin. This date had officially taken a turn for the unexpected.

"Well, we don't have much choice, do we?" he said, putting the truck in park. "Unless you want to stay out here in Loretta." He added before hopping out of the truck into the rain. I had forgotten his truck shared my middle name. He came around with the umbrella and helped me out of the truck. We made our way through the muddy yard and into the cabin, somewhat dry despite all the rain that was pouring out of the sky.

"I'm gonna call the house to let them know what's goin on. There's no cell service out here, so you can use the land line to call your roommate after I'm done." He said after we had gotten all the lights turned back on. I doubted that if I called Nicki that she would answer, but I would anyways.

"Hey Ash, let me talk to momma." Pause. "Hey, momma, me and Rhi are stuck at the cabin." Another pause. "Yeah, the road flooded out before we could make it out." Another pause. "Okay, yeah, I will. Love you too." Then he hung up. As he handed me the phone I thought about how I liked how he called me Rhi. I dialed Nicki's number, praying she wouldn't answer. She was probably out at a party, and I didn't feel like listening to her drunken ramblings. As it rang I watched Scotty trying to start a fire in the fireplace. I got her voicemail.

"Nicki, I don't know if you'll get this before I see you, but I got stuck at a cabin with Scotty. So I won't be home tonight. Be careful whatever you're out doing. See you tomorrow." I hung up the phone, putting it back on its base. When I went over to sit on the couch, Scotty had a decent sized fire going.

"Nice work eagle scout." I teased him.

He turned around to face me and gave me that heart-melting smile of his. "I never actually made it that far. Just cub scouts." He told me, sitting on the couch next to me.

"Well…what now?" he said looking at me. "I didn't really plan for this to happen."

"You sure bout that?" I said trying to flirt with him. "That seemed a little too convenient that the road flooded out." I knew it wasn't planned, but I was having fun teasing with him.

"No ma'am," he chuckled. "I was raised that on the first date you take the girl home at the end of the night, not get stranded in the middle of the woods with her."

"Yeah, same here." I told him. "I too, was not raised to get stranded in the woods with a guy I'm on a date with." We both cracked up laughing. "But seriously," I said after we stopped laughing, "what are we gonna do? It's a little too early to go to bed." It was only 9:30.

"Bout the only thing we can do is sit here. There's no tv or anything like that. Oh! Hold up a second. I just thought of something." He jumped off the couch and grabbed the umbrella before heading back outside. What the heck was doing? He came back inside after a minute with a guitar.

"I forgot I still had this out in my truck from earlier today. And I think, there may be a keyboard back here." He ran to a closet and pulled out a dusty keyboard. "Let's make some music!" he said after setting the keyboard up in front of me.

"Really?" I said. I still kind of couldn't process that all of this was happening.

"Yeah, really. Like you said, it's too early to go to bed." He said as he started strumming a few chords. "Any requests miss?" he asked me.

"Hmmm…." I said, thinking. "How about…oh, I don't know. I'm horrible at picking out songs on the spot like this."

"Hahaha, that's alright." He said, patting my knee. "How about a little Tim?" He started singing _Don't Take the Girl _by Tim McGraw. After he finished we went back and forth playing and singing different songs for each other.

"Hey, can I ask you a question Scotty?" I said after I finished a rendition of _Our Song _by Taylor Swift. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to, I'm just curious."

"Um, sure…" he said, looking at me nervously.

"It's nothing bad. I was just wondering what Ashley meant the other night at dinner when she asked you if you had asked me where you knew me from?" I had been wondering what she meant, but I didn't ask at the time.

"Oh, yeah. I don't mind answering that." He said, sitting the guitar back in its case on the coffee table next to the keyboard. "I know that you probably won't believe this, but I remember meeting you last May. But when I met you again the other day I couldn't figure out where I knew you from. When you told me that night that we had met at the concert it clicked back into place."

There was no way he remembered me. He met thousands of people between now and then. "Are you serious? Or are you just trying to impress me? Cause yeah, it's a little hard to believe that you remember me." I leaned back into the couch staring at him.

"I am being a hundred percent honest with you. I don't know why I remembered you out of all the people I met." He said. "But, the more time I'm spending with you, the more I'm starting you realize why I did." He added putting his hand over mine. I took my other hand pinched the bridge of my nose with it. This was all a little too fairy tale-ish. My mind went back to the night of the concert.

"You probably won't believe me when I tell you this." I said, turning my hand over under his, allowing our fingers to intertwine. "After I got done meeting you and I went back out to meet my friend, she said that I looked like my heart had just been broken. Then once you came out on stage, she said she had never seen my face light up so much. I told her she was just seeing things though. But, like you said the more time I'm spending with you, I'm realizing she was probably right." We stared at each other for a minute. He looked like he was leaning in to kiss me, when we both heard a crash.

_Scotty's Point of View_

"What was that?" Rhiannon said jumping backwards on the couch towards me. I was just about to kiss her when we both heard the crash. It sounded like it came from one of the bedrooms.

"I don't know. I'll go look." I said standing up. I figured she would stay on the couch, but she stood up with me walking behind me like I was a human shield. We walked over to the room that the noise came from. I cautiously opened the door a little bit and flipped on the light. I felt Rhiannon grab my shoulders as she went up on her toes to peer over my shoulder. On the bed sat a huge raccoon.

"Holy crap!" I yelled. I reached back in and turn off the light and shut the door before the animal could realize what was happening.

"How did that thing get in here?" Rhiannon said.

"I don't know. There may be a hole in one of the walls or the window may be open a little also. We better check the other room also." We walked across the short hallway to the other bedroom. I slightly opened the door and flipped on the light. There wasn't an animal in there, but there was no bed. I had forgotten that the bed broke last time we were here.

"Well, this is just swell." I heard Rhiannon say into my back as she lowered herself off of her toes. "You really know how to show a girl a good time Mr. McCreery. Fried chicken, getting stranded in the woods, rabid raccoons. I'm surprised you don't have more girls after you around here." I turned around to see if she was seriously mad. I was met with a smile though. I wrapped my arms around her hugging her to my chest.

"I really am sorry about all of this." I told her. We walked back to the couch with my arm around her shoulders and her arm around my waist.

"It's really okay Scotty, believe me. I've had more disastrous first dates than this." She said as we sat back down on the couch. "I went on a date with this one guy who had his mom drive us and chaperone us all night. He was twenty years old and in college." I had to laugh at that. At least my date wasn't going that bad.

"Yeah, that is pretty bad. What time is it?" I asked her. She pulled out her phone and told me it was 11:30. It was getting pretty late and I could tell she was getting tired. "You can take the couch to sleep on; I can make a pallet on the floor for myself."

"Oh, there is no way I'm letting you sleep on the floor." She said sitting up to look at me.

"Well what else should we do?" I asked her. I would love to share the couch with her, but I wasn't going to suggest that.

"This couch has pull-out bed in it. It'll be big enough for both of us to sleep on." She said standing up.

"How do you know it has a bed in it?" I asked her, standing up also.

"I can tell by looking at it." She said as she started pulling the cushions off. Sure enough, there was a pull-out bed in there. Why did I never know about it? I helped her push the coffee table back before I pulled the bed out. As I pulled it out, Rhiannon went to the hall closet and got out a set of sheets and blankets. We made the bed and then just stared at each other.

"If you want to brush your teeth or anything we keep spare toothbrushes under the sink." I told her.

"Yeah, that'd be great." She said. We both walked to the bathroom and brushed our teeth. After we were done we went back to the bed. She crawled in on one side and I crawled in on the other. The bed was big enough that we could lie comfortably without touching each other, but small enough that if one of us rolled over we would be touching. To say it was awkward, is putting it lightly.

"Goodnight Scotty" I heard her say in the dark.

"Goodnight Rhi" I said back to her.

"Scotty?" I heard her say again.

"Yeah?" I said back.

"Despite all the craziness that has happened, I've had a really good time so far." She told me.

I smiled into the darkness, doing a small fist pump. "Yeah, me too." I said, trying to sound as calm as she did. We eventually both drifted off to sleep. A few hours later I woke up. The rain had finally let up and the moon was out. It was still dark though, too early to be awake.

"Scotty…" I heard. I look over at Rhiannon to see her face lit up by the moon. She was still asleep. So she talked in her sleep, huh?

"Yeah?" I whispered back, not wanting to wake her, but wanting to see what she was going to say.

"Don't…don't" she said scrunching her face.

"Don't what?" I whispered.

"Don't" she said back. All of a sudden she rolled over throwing one of her arms across my stomach, resting her head on my chest. I froze for a second before putting my arms around her.

"I won't," I whispered into her hair before kissing it. "I won't" I said again before drifting back off into a peaceful sleep with Rhiannon in my arms.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

_Rhiannon's Point of View_

The warm sun was shining on my face and I could hear the birds chirping in the distance. I could also feel the warmth of Zac Efron's arms around me. The voice I heard though, wasn't Zac's.

"Rhi? You awake?" this voice was too deep and had too thick of an accent. "Rhi?"

I opened my eyes to realize I was not in Zac Efron's arms as I had been dreaming. I was in Scotty's and it wasn't a dream. I lifted my head from his chest slowly trying to remember where I was. That's right, I thought, we got stranded here last night. But how did we end up together like this?

"Yeah, yeah, I'm up." I said sitting up all the way. I looked around at cabin then looked at Scotty. He looked so dang cute. He still had that half asleep look on his face. By the way the sun was still low in the sky, I could tell it was early. I was right, according to my phone it was only 6:35.

"Ugh, dang sun. Waking us up." Scotty said with a chuckle as he rubbed his eyes.

"Technically, you woke me up. I could've sleep right on until noon." I said nudging his arm.

"Well I'm sorry." He said looking apologetic. "If you wanna go back to sleep you can."

"Nah," I answered. "I'm already up, no going back now." We both got out of the bed and stretched. Scotty told me I could use the bathroom to freshen up a bit if I wanted to first. I went in and took a look at myself. Not bad, I decided, not bad for sleeping on an old pull-out couch at the last minute. My make-up had stayed pretty much in tact, just a little smudged at my eyes. My hair was only slightly messy. I was able to finger comb through it and put it in a side braid. When I walked back out into the living room, Scotty already had the bed put away and the coffee table put back in place.

"Alright, that's it." I said loudly so he could hear me. He spun around to face me.

"What?" he said looking worried.

"In the past few days I've known you, you haven't let me do hardly anything. You don't let me help clean up, you carry stuff for me, and it's frustrating!"

"Well…I, uh…don't really know what to say to that. That's just how I was raised." He said looking at me innocently.

"I know that. But you are like, the only guy I know that actually follows through with it for more than a day!" Why was I yelling at him? I had no reason to get upset about this! I pinched the bridge of my nose, let out a sigh, and walked over to him.

I took his hands in mine and looked up at him, "I'm sorry, I don't know why I went off like that. I really do like that you're like that. I'm just not used to it and the unknown kind of freaks me out sometimes. Plus I'm a grouch first thing in the morning."

He let out a laugh as he wrapped his arms around me. "It's okay, I understand where you're coming from. But, I'm not gonna stop doing stuff for you, so you better get used to it little missy."

"I'll promise to try to get used to it if…" I said leaning back to look up at him.

"…If?" he said cautiously.

"If…you promise to let me make you breakfast this morning. Your mom's cooked for me, you've cooked for me. It's time to let me cook for you." I told him.

"Hmmm….alright. That's an 'if' I can live with." He said with a smile. We turned off the electricity that led to the cabin and got back in the truck. As we headed down the dirt road I felt myself drifting off again with flashes of my dream coming back. Not the Zac Efron dream, but the Scotty dream. I had dreamed that he was taking me to an awards show. As we were getting out of the limo, he pushed me back in telling me that he didn't care about me and that I was just a joke to him. I jolted awake as I realized something.

"Hey Scotty?" I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Yeah?" he said.

"I didn't by any chance say anything last night. I've been told I talk in my sleep." I said looking over at him. I thought I saw his jaw tighten for a split second.

"Yeah, you did a little bit." He answered me.

I waited for him to continue. "Well, what did I say?"

"Oh, nothing really. Something about your piano." He told me. I could tell he was lying. I hated lying to him too.

"Really? Cause I had a dream about you." I said to him, throwing him for a loop.

He let out a sigh. "Alright, you caught me. You said my name. You also said something about 'don't'. What was that about?" I could tell he was curious, but I felt like I had already told him too much.

"I ain't tellin you that! Be thankful I even told you that you were in my dream." I snapped at him.

"Alright, alright. Calm down!" He said reaching over to rub my knee. I caught his hand and gave it a squeeze. To my surprise, he kept a hold of it.

"Don't you need to get some clothes?" I asked him, noticing he had gone straight through Garner into Raleigh.

"I got an extra set in here." He told me.

"Oh, okay. Well if you need to shower or anything Nicki keeps guys shampoo and stuff at the apartment." I told him. He raised an eyebrow at me. "Nicki has a lot of…man friends…that sometimes stay over."

"And you're okay with that?" he asked me.

"Well….not really. But she doesn't make me pay rent, so I don't say anything." It did worry me having strange guys in our apartment, so I just learned to lock my door at night. We finally reached my apartment building and I instructed him to park in the parking garage. We got out of the truck and made our way up to the sixth floor. Once we reached the door, I dug out my keys and unlocked the door, pushing it open.

"Welcome, Mr. McCreery to my humble abode."

_Scotty's Point of View_

Rhiannon's apartment was definitely nice. A lot nicer than you would expect two twenty-somethings would have.

"Come on in, take your shoes off though." Rhiannon told me as we walked in. "Nicki?" She yelled through the apartment. She was met with silence. "Not a big surprise. Here is the bathroom, shampoo and stuff is under the sink. I'm sure you know how to work a shower, so, help yourself!" With that she walked out, shutting the door. I had to shake my head at her. Rhiannon could be pushy when she wanted to be. After I had showered and changed into my clean clothes, I headed into the kitchen. I was met with the smell of cooking bacon and Rhiannon singing along to the radio.

"_We grow where the grass is green, we got home-grown in our genes. We love country everything, from Alan Jackson to Aldean." _

"Very nice," I said making her jump. "Lauren would be impressed."

"Geez! You scared the heck outta me!" she said hitting me with a towel as I walked up next to her.

"Sorry" I said, kissing her on the forehead. "Whatcha makin me, honey?"

"Well, _honey_, I am making some bacon, eggs, biscuits, and my special gravy." She told me.

"Special gravy?" I asked raising an eyebrow.

"Yep, now go sit down at the island and wait like a good boy." Rhiannon said pushing me towards a bar stool. I sat down and watched her cook. I noticed that she had changed out of her jeans and plaid shirt into a pair of boy shorts and an old t-shirt. I was amazed at how no matter what she wore, she always looked beautiful.

"Better enjoy this music while you can." She said, turning around to face me, leaning on the counter.

"Why's that?" I asked.

"Cause Nicki hates country music. With a passion." She said looking at me very seriously.

"You and her sound like complete opposites. How do you live with her?" I asked bewildered. This Nicki sounded nothing like Rhiannon.

"Eh," she replied with a shrug, turning around to flip the bacon. "Opposites attract I guess. Where she would rather go out, I'd rather stay in. Where she likes drowning the apartment with Hollywood Undead, I'd rather fill it with Faith Hill. We balance each other out." All of a sudden the front burst open and a very sloppy looking blonde walked through the door.

"I need my stuff and I need it stat." she slurred to Rhiannon.

"Midol and peanuts are by your bed and," Rhiannon reached into the fridge pulling out a red gatorade, "here is your magic potion to make you pretty again." She said handing it to her.

"Hahahaha, yeah I missed that hillbilly humor. NOT." She concluded slamming her bedroom door.

"That Nicki?" I asked, pointing towards her door.

"Yup, that was the ever happy Nicole St. Joe. Can't wait to hear what she did last night. Alright, foods done." She said turning around to set the plates of food in front of me. "Here is the bacon, fried eggs, biscuits, and my special gravy."

I leaned forward to look at the gravy. "Chocolate? Is this chocolate?" I said stirring the contents of the pan.

"Sure is. It's chocolate gravy. My specialty." She said dishing me up a plate. I had never heard of chocolate gravy. I cautiously took a bite of it with my biscuits. Oh wow, I thought, this is amazing.

"Like it?" she asked.

"Love it." I answered her with a smile. We ate in silence for about fifteen minutes until Nicki came back into the kitchen.

"Oh sweet. You actually cooked for once." She said dishing up a plate. She stopped when she saw me sitting at the counter. "Who's this kid?" she asked Rhiannon.

"Nicki, this is Scotty." She told her.

"Oh, so you're the boy that's had her all worked up the past few days." She said to me.

"Yeah," I said with a chuckle. "That would be me I guess."

"Cool. Well, I have to warn you. If you break her heart, I'm gonna have to kill you."

"Nicki!" Rhiannon exclaimed.

"Well it's true. No one messes with my friends. No matter how famous they are." She said pointing a butter knife at me.

"You won't have to worry about that. I'd never hurt a hair on her, or break her heart." I told her.

"Uh, huh." Nicki said lowering the knife. "That's what they all say."

**Author's Note: Hey everyone! I hope you are enjoying the story. If you are reading it (which I hope you are) I would really, really appreciate some feedback! Whether its suggestions or just saying you enjoy the story, anything would be appreciated. I can't be sure that you all like the story if you aren't telling me! Thank you and happy reading!**


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

_Rhiannon's Point of View_

I was half-way impressed; Nicki wasn't one to really care about anyone but herself. The other half of me was embarrassed beyond all belief.

"Nicki, seriously?" I shook my head at her.

"Yes,_ seriously _Rhiannon. This boy needs to know these things." She said taking a bar stool beside him. "Wait," she said before taking a bite, "what is he doing here so early?"

"Did you not listen to the voicemail I left you?" I said to her. She shook her head and pulled out her phone.

"Well lookey there, one new voicemail. Let's listen, shall we?" she put the phone up to her ear and listened to the message. "Oh, wow." She said after it was finished, "that's classic. Stranded at a cabin. Nice move Scotty-boy." She said nudging Scotty in the arm.

"Thanks," Scotty responded, "I think? It really was an accident though." Nicki raised an eyebrow at me.

"It really was." I told her. "But I am more interested in hearing about your night."

"Oh, didn't do anything much. Just drank a bit, danced a lot. Woke up in some Channing Tatum look-a-like's bed." She said with a shrug.

I gave her a stern look. "Nicki…" I chastised.

She threw her hands in the arm in innocence. "Hey, according to the guy we didn't do anything. Apparently he found me half-way passed out on a couch at the club, offered me a ride home and when I couldn't tell him where I lived, he just took me back to his place and let me crash there."

"Uh-huh," I said taking a sip of my coffee. "I'm sure that's what happened."

"It probably did, the guy gave me his number and everything. Said to give him a call if I needed a ride home ever again." She said back to me.

"Okay, whatever. So, Scotty. What do you have going on today?" I felt bad leaving him out of the conversation.

"Oh, I just have to run some errands in Raleigh today. You can go with me if you want. Then we have that bonfire tonight if you still wanna go." He said to me.

"Yeah, I still want to go with you tonight. And what kind of errands?" I asked.

"Nothing too big, just have to get some fittings done." He answered.

"Oooo, shopping with country boy. Sounds fun." Nicki said.

"Nicki, be quiet. Yeah, I'll go with you Scotty. Do I have time to clean up?" I asked him.

"Yeah, yeah. I don't have to be there at any certain time." He said to me.

"Alright, cool. I'm gonna go clean up. Scotty, eat as much as you want. Nicki," I said pointing at her, "Be. Nice."

She raised an eyebrow at me. "I'm not promising anything, but I'll try my best." With that I pointed at her one last time, reinforcing my command and went to clean up.

_Nicki's Point of View_

Wow, I thought to myself as Rhiannon walked into her room, that girl has got it bad for the boy. I looked him up and down as he watched her walk away too. He looked like her type, cute smile, good height, country.

"So," I said to him once I hear Rhiannon's shower start up. "I was serious about what I said earlier. You hurt her, and I'll hurt you. I don't have friends. But that girl in there is my best friend and if anyone, not just you, where to ever hurt her, make her upset, make her anything short of obliviously happy, I will show them no mercy. Do you understand me?"

He looked at me, the smile had left his face. "Not only do I understand you, but I feel that very same way."

I normally wouldn't have believed that, he's only known her a few days. But, something in his eyes made me believe it. "Alright, good." I said to him. All of a sudden his phone went off.

"Crap," he said, "forgot to call momma when we got here." He answered the phone. "Hey momma, I'm over at Rhiannon's apartment." Pause. "Yeah, she made me and her roommate breakfast." Another pause. "Yes ma'am I remembered. She's going to go with me. We'll probably get lunch somewhere here in town." Another pause. "Um, sure, I'll mention it to her." Another pause and a laugh from Scotty. "You have point, I'll offer it to her. Love you too. Bye." Then he hung up and shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck.

"What's up?" I asked him.

"Oh," he said looking at me. "Nothing really…let me ask you something though. I just want to know if I should even bother asking her."

"Asking who what?" I said looking at him cautiously.

"My mom wants me to ask Rhiannon if she wants to join us at our cottage over Memorial Day weekend. Do you think I should even ask her? Or do you think it's too soon?" he asked me.

I thought about it for a second. "Normally I would say yes, that it was too soon. But, since you two are not the normal couple and seem to be falling for each other already, I say go ahead and ask her. She'll probably say yes."

A smile spread across his face. "You think she's really falling for me?" he said.

"Oh geez" I said rolling my eyes. "Yes, I do." People in love make me sick, I thought to myself.

"You do what?" I heard Rhiannon say.

_Scotty's Point of View_

Oh gosh, I thought, please don't let her have heard what we just said.

Luckily Nicki came to the rescue. "He couldn't believe I hate country music." She said putting our plates up. Rhiannon came walking into the kitchen wearing khaki colored shorts, a cream colored tank, and her sperrys. Her long brown hair was still slightly damp, but braided off to the side like she did this morning. I don't know how she manages to look amazing all the time.

"Yeah," I said. "Just doesn't seem right to me."

"Uh, huh" she said. "Sure that's what y'all were talking about. Don't worry, I'll get it out of one of you."

Nicki laughed. "Won't be from me sweetheart. Well, I'll see y'all later. Have fun, Scotty, remember what I said." With that she walked from the room.

I chuckled as I shook my head. "You ready to go?" I asked Rhiannon.

"Yeah, you?" she replied. I nodded my head in response. She grabbed her purse and we were out the door. Once we got down to the truck I remembered what Momma wanted me to ask her.

"Oh, hey. I almost forgot. While you were getting ready my mom called." I said. "She wanted me to tell you that since the bonfires usually last so late you can stay in the guest room at our house tonight. You can go to church with us and all that tomorrow too."

"Alright," she replied. "Sounds good. We'll have to stop back by here later so I can get a bag ready."

"Yeah, that's fine." I said pulling out of the parking garage. "We'll go run these errands, and then we'll get something to eat and then we'll get ready for the party."

"Sounds like a plan." She said grabbing my hand. I had left it sitting on the middle console, hoping she would take it. We drove through Raleigh in silence, just listening to the radio. Every now and then I would point out a cool place I thought she would like. We finally made it to the shop.

"Jackie's Bridal shop?" she asked as I opened her door for her.

"Yeah, I have to get a fitting done for my suit I'm wearing to the CMT Awards here in a few weeks." I said as we walked towards the shop.

"Oh, okay. That makes sense." She said as we walked into the shop.

"Scotty! How are you?" I heard as the door closed. I had been coming to Ms. Jackie for a while now to get fittings done.

"I'm good Ms. Jackie and how bout yourself?" I said giving her a hug.

"Oh, I'm still dancing as they say. Now, who is this pretty little thing you have with you?" she asked looking at Rhiannon.

Rhiannon extended her hand before I could answer, "My name is Rhiannon. I'm Scotty's errand buddy for the day."

"Now I can tell you ain't from around here, cause everyone knows in my shop we don't shake hands, we hug. Now come on over here!" Ms. Jackie said pulling Rhiannon into a hug.

"Oh," Rhiannon said as she was released. "My bad, I should've guessed that."

"Well now you know! Scotty, I assume you are here to get fitted for your suit? I picked out something real nice for you this year. You are gonna love it!" Ms. Jackie said pulling me back to the dressing rooms. She pushed me into one and told me to put it on.

"I assumed you haven't grown much since last year so I just used the same measurements from then." She yelled over the door. "He does look like he's gained a little in the belly though." I heard her whisper to Rhiannon who responded with a giggle.

"Hey!" I yelled, "I heard that!" I put on the suit she picked out for me. It wasn't really a suit, more of a casual outfit. She had me a pair of jeans, a white button down shirt and a brown vest that went over it. This would be nice and cool for the warm weather Nashville always had and the awards. I stepped out of the dressing room to see what they thought.

"Well dagum, I think I did a pretty good job. If I do say so myself." Ms. Jackie said. "What do you think?" she said to Rhiannon.

"He cleans up pretty nice. The vest looks like it needs to be taken in a bit. And he's probably supposed to roll the sleeves up ain't he?" She said back.

"Very good eye, little miss! You sew?" Ms. Jackie said as she came over to me and started pinning the vest.

"Yeah, my grandma taught me to embroider when I was young, then when I was older I taught myself how to hem and make clothes. I actually made this top." She said back, giving me a smile.

"You don't say? Alright Mr. McCreery, you can go on and change. Oh, wait, I almost forgot to ask, do you like the outfit?" Ms. Jackie said.

"Yes, Ms. Jackie. It's amazing. Thank you." I said as I stepped back into the dressing room. As I changed I heard the girls talking about different kinds of stitching and sewing stuff. I stepped back out of the dressing room, leaving the outfit behind.

"Thank you again, Ms. Jackie. I love the outfit." I said giving her another hug.

"Oh, it's my pleasure hun. You know anytime you need anything you give me a call. Same goes for you too, Miss Freed." She said as she gave Rhiannon a hug.

We left the shop and got back in the truck. "Alright," I said. "It's 11:30 and I'm starving. Ready to eat?"

Rhiannon laughed, "Yeah, I guess I could. Even though we just did."

"That's was like…" I counted in my head, "three hours ago though."

"Calm your horses!" she said throwing her hands in the air, "I didn't say we couldn't! I was just pointing out that we ate not too long ago. If you wanna eat, let's go eat."

"Good," I said, starting the truck. "Cause I don't know if I could keep seeing you if you were trying to keep me from my food. We have a special relationship, me and my food do."

Rhiannon doubled over laughing before grabbing my hand and saying, "I wouldn't dream of it."


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

_Rhiannon's Point of View_

We ate lunch at Bojangles in Raleigh. I had to admit, it was pretty amazing. When we got back to my apartment to get me a bag for that night, Nicki was asleep on the couch. So I packed a bag really quick and we left.

"I guess we can just head back to the house and hang out for a while." Scotty said as we left my building, "Then I'm sure momma will want to make us supper before we head out to the bonfire."

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea." I said to him. We rode back to his house switching back and forth between talking and listening to the radio. When we got back to his house his mom and dad were still at work and Ashley was out with friends. Me and Scotty headed down to the basement to watch a movie.

"What sounds good?" he asked me as we scanned their family's collection.

"It doesn't really matter to me, I'll probably fall asleep anyways." I said sitting down on the couch.

"Aw, is Rhi-Rhi sweepy?" Scotty said pouting his lip out at me.

"Yes," I said, "Rhi-Rhi is very tired."

He popped in a movie and sat down on the couch next to me. "Well," he said. "We can't have you tired for the big bonfire tonight. So if you feel the need to fall asleep, go right on ahead. I'll wake you up when dinner is ready."

"Okay," I said feeling myself slipping into sleep as he put his arm around me. I wasn't sure why I was so tired, but I was.

The next thing I knew I felt Scotty gently shaking me awake. "Hey, momma just yelled down that dinner is almost ready."

"Huh?" I said coming out of my sleep. "Oh, yeah. Okay." I stood up and stretched then fell back onto the couch next to Scotty. I looked over at him and he started laughing.

"And what is so funny?" I said.

"You!" he said, still laughing. "You're just so cute when you first wake up."

I sat up on the edge of the couch, turning to look at him face-on. "You are so strange!" I said laughing back at him. "How in the world can you think that-" the next thing I knew he was kissing me. It wasn't a passionate, fire-filled kiss like you see in movies. It was sweet and gentle, perfect.

When we broke apart Scotty looked at me and smiled, "I've wanted to do that ever since you had dinner with our family the other night."

"Yeah," I said smiling back. "Me too." He gave me another quick kiss and then we headed upstairs.

Dinner with the McCreery's was pleasant. We all made small talk, telling how our day went.

"Oh, Scotty? Did you ask Rhiannon about next weekend?" his mom said. Scotty's neck immediately went red.

"No, not yet momma." He said putting his head down, avoiding my gaze.

"Well why not?" Judy said back to him. When Scotty didn't immediately answer she turned to me. "Rhiannon, next weekend a few families from around town, including us, are going to the beach for Memorial Day weekend. Ashley already has plans for that weekend so that leaves us with an extra room and we were wondering if you would like to go with us."

"Oh yes ma'am. That sounds like fun. I haven't been to the beach in years!" I was truly excited. Plus, it meant another whole weekend with Scotty. I looked over at him to see that the red from his neck was gone and he was wearing a huge smile.

"Great," he said. "We better go get ready for the bonfire. It'll start getting dark soon."

I started to help Judy clear off the table, she actually let me help this time. When we got into the kitchen with the dishes, Judy turned to me. "I'm sorry to have put you on the spot like that. But I needed to know if you are going to go so we could let the other families know if all of our rooms were full or not."

"Oh, no," I said. "It's fine."

"Good." She said. "I could tell Scotty was real excited when you said yes. By the way, did he tell you about staying here tonight?"

"Yes ma'am, he did. I have a bag and stuff downstairs. Can I ask you a question?" I said to her as we put the last dish in the washer.

"Sure hun, what is it?"

"Why do you think Scotty didn't ask me about next weekend? You don't think he doesn't want me to go do you?" I asked nervously.

"Oh sweetheart no! Of course he wants you to go! If I had to guess why he didn't say anything to you about it is because he doesn't want to scare you off." She told me.

"Scare me off?" I was confused.

"Yes. He was probably scared that you would think you all were moving too fast. Which, I have to admit, y'all are. But, I can tell that you two have something special between you. And also the fact that he isn't real used to opening up to people ever since winning Idol and he certainly isn't used to dating. Inviting you away for the weekend is a big deal to him. Honey, he's falling for you."

I didn't know what to say back. I thought about everything she said as I changed into a pair of blue jeans and my boots.

_Scotty's Point of View _

As we drove out of town I noticed that Rhiannon was awfully quiet. "Hey," I said rubbing her knee. "You okay?"

"Oh," she said, breaking out of whatever she was thinking. "Yeah, I'm okay. I'm just nervous to meet the rest of your friends."

I could tell that wasn't all she was thinking about, but I didn't push it. We drove the rest of the way partly in silence, partly making small talk. At last we arrived at Ryan's farm. We pulled up next to the barn and got out of the truck. As we started off towards the glow of the fire I took Rhiannon's hand in mine.

"Don't be nervous," I told her. "Just be your usual, amazing self and they will love you."

"Thanks," she said. "But I think you may be a little biased on the 'amazing' part."

I was going to respond that she was wrong but we had arrived at the fire. "McCreery! You made it" I heard as we walked up. It appeared that most of the people I graduated with had come out. We went around saying hi to everyone.

"Well lookey there, hillbilly girl came too!" Ryan said once we got to him.

"You know I have a real name right?" Rhiannon said crossing her arms.

"Yeah, I know." Ryan he said back to her. "It's just too dang hard to say. So, you're hillbilly girl."

"Oh geez, it's not that hard!" She said giving his arm a shove. "Okay, repeat after me." They spent the next few minutes teaching everyone around how to say her name. Eventually she gave up. "Geez, just call me Rhi! Alright?"

"Nah," Ryan said. "I like hillbilly." Rhiannon responded by rolling her eyes.

"Hey Scotty! Who's this you got with ya?" I heard a girl ask behind me. I turned to see it was Claire. Claire and I had dated back before I auditioned for Idol and everyone said she still liked me, but for the wrong reasons.

"Hey Claire, this is Rhiannon. She's my date for the night. Rhiannon this is Claire." I said introducing the two girls.

"Hi," Rhiannon said to Claire. "I was starting to think I was going to be the only girl out here." She added with a laugh.

"Oh, no honey!" Claire said with an evil smile crossing her face. "Don't you know that wherever Scotty is, girls aren't too far behind?"

"Oh, yeah. True!" Rhiannon said with a forced laugh. I looked between the two girls. They were opposites in almost every way. Where Claire was fake, Rhiannon was real. About that time a couple more girl friends of mine walked up and I introduced them to Rhiannon too.

"Rhi, this is Sarah and Carrie." The girls immediately embraced Rhiannon telling her how happy they were to meet her, and how they had heard so much about her.

"Come on." Sarah said grabbing Rhiannon by the hand. "I need to use the bathroom and it's a bit of a walk. Come with me?"

"Uh, sure?" Rhiannon said looking back at me.

"Go on," I told her laughing. "These two girls won't bite."

I watched the three girls walk away back towards the barn. "So," I heard Claire say behind me. "She's your newest fling?"

I let out a heavy sigh as I turned around to her. "What are you talking about? I don't have 'flings' and you know it."

"She doesn't know what she's talking about." I looked up and saw Jay and Ryan standing behind her. "She was just leaving."

"I am not! Why would I leave?" she spun to face them.

"Cause we aren't going to have you causing problems tonight. Scotty is here with Rhiannon, not you. Either you accept that and leave the girl alone, or you leave." Ryan told her. My boys, always got my back. Claire let out a grunt, stomped her foot like a child, and left.

"Thanks man, appreciate it." I told them.

"Don't worry about." Jay said, slapping me on the back. "We can tell you really like that girl and for some reason she likes your goofy butt. Plus I was afraid Claire was gonna catch on fire with all that hairspray." We all laughed as Sarah, Carrie, and Rhiannon came back.

We spent the rest of the night sitting around the fire. Somebody broke out a couple guitars and the ones that knew how to play took turns. Rhiannon surprised me by knowing how to play guitar also. We talked about all kinds of different topics. At one point the girls took off running into the field to catch fireflies.

As we sat there I looked over at Rhiannon. If I could, I thought, I'd never leave this moment right now. She caught me staring at her and raised an eyebrow at me. I leaned over and kissed her. I didn't care who saw. We were met with wolf-whistles and 'get a room's.

About 1:30 I felt my head fall onto Rhiannon's shoulder. "You tired?" she said looking up at me. "Yeah, we better head back." I told her. We told everyone bye and headed back to the truck. I started to lead Rhiannon to the passenger side when she stopped me.

"Oh, no way are you driving home." She said to me.

"What? Why not?" I asked her. What was her problem?

"You can barely keep your eyes open. There's no way I'm letting you drive home. Give me the keys." She said holding her hand out to me.

I stared at her, no one but me drove Loretta. We had a stare off for about a minute when I finally gave in. "Alright, you have point. Just please, take it easy on her." I reluctantly handed her my keys.

"Don't worry," she said going up on her toes to kiss my cheek. "You'll be out before we hit the main road anyways."


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

I was right about Scotty being out before we hit the main road. As I drove, he snored lightly from the passenger seat. I thought about the night. It was absolutely perfect, in every single way possible. The only downside was Claire. I had gotten a weird vibe from her. When I went to the barn with Sarah and Carrie I asked them what her deal was. They told me reluctantly that her and Scotty had dated, but broke up a few months before he auditioned for Idol. It started to bother me a little bit, thinking of her being there. But, as we were walking out of the barn we saw her stomping towards her little mustang, mumbling something about how they couldn't do that to her and few choice cuss words. The three of us exchanged glances and headed back towards the fire.

I finally got us back to his house, only getting turned around once. "Scotty?" I said as I gently shook him. He didn't even stir. "Scotty?" I said shaking him little harder. Nothing. "What? Are you dead?" I said shaking him even harder. Still nothing. I put up the middle console and scooted over next to him, time to pull out the big guns. "SCOTTY!" I yelled. When he jumped awake, his eyes flying open, I pressed my lips to his. He immediately responded and kissed me back. "We're back." I said after I pulled away.

"Oh," he said undoing his seatbelt. "Cool, nice wake up by the way." He said as we got out of the truck.

"No problem." I said, "you still don't look very awake though."

He threw his arm around my shoulder as we walked into his house. "Yeah, I could probably curl up right here and go back to sleep." He said in a whisper as we walked towards the basement. We walked down into the basement and he walked me to the door of the guest room. "Well, here we are." He said looking at the door, his eyes only half open.

"Yup, here we are." I said looking up at him. "Scotty, I had a really amazing time tonight."

"Really?" he said to me.

"Yeah, really." He lifted my chin up to kiss me. When he did it sent butterflies through my stomach. I went up on my toes, using his shoulders for support, kissing him back. We stood there for a few minutes kissing. Eventually we broke apart.

"Goodnight Scotty" I told him as I opened the door.

He pulled me back towards him for one last kiss, "Good night Rhi". And with that he went upstairs, leaving me with jelly-feeling legs. I went into the bedroom and shut the door. Good Lord, I prayed to myself as I gathered my stuff up to take a shower, what are you gettin me into?

After I had showered and gotten dressed for bed, I crawled in under the sheets. I was about to fall asleep when I heard my phone go off. I rolled over and picked it up off the floor where it was charging. It was a new message from Scotty.

"Hey, just wanted to let you know we'll leave for church bout 9. Momma always has breakfast ready bout 8-830. Had an amzing time tonite too night"

I rolled back over smiling to myself. Whatever I was gettin into, I thought, I ain't complainin about it.

The next morning I woke up about 7:30. I quickly got up and dressed for church. I had brought along an orange floral skirt, a plain white tee, and a light yellow sweater to wear. I pinned back the front part of my hair, thankful my wavy hair has cooperating this morning. By the time I was ready, it was 8:15.

I walked into the kitchen to find Judy standing at the stove cooking something. "Morning Mrs. McCreery!" I greeted her.

She turned around and gave me a big smile. "Oh good morning! And honey you can call me Judy. Would you like some coffee? This all should be done in a little bit."

"Coffee sounds amazing." I told her. I couldn't start my day properly without it. As she cooked breakfast we talked about the bonfire. Mike and Ashley joined us as I told about me and Scotty's night.

"Yeah, at the end of the night though we had to leave cause Scotty kept falling asleep." I told them.

"Oh gosh, that boy." His mom said shaking her head. "How did y'all get home then?"

"I drove us." I said. They all stared at me. "What?" I said.

"Scotty let you drive Loretta?" Mike said to me.

"Well, I kind of made him let me." They still stared at me.

"Wow," Ashley said. "He must really like you. No one, and I mean no one, drives Loretta. He let pops once, but he was freaking out the whole time. That truck is his baby."

"Oh," I said as Judy sat a plate in front of me. "Well I wasn't going to let him drive tired. He fell asleep before we hit the main road anyways."

"Yup," Ashley said dipping up some scrambled eggs. "He likes you. A lot."

I didn't know what to say back. I was always at a loss for words when people brought that kind of stuff up. A couple minutes later Scotty came into the kitchen wearing a red polo and khaki pants. Dang, I thought, he is just too good looking sometimes. He walked up to his mom who was standing next to the plates and grabbed one.

"Mornin momma," Scotty said as he gave her a kiss on the cheek. He walked around the bar and came up to me. "Mornin Rhi" he said as he gave me a kiss on the cheek too, but mine was a little closer to the mouth. He took a seat next to me dipping up a plate.

"What?" Ashley said. "No kiss for your sister?"

We all cracked up laughing when Scotty blew her a pretend kiss. We spent the rest of breakfast eating in silence with someone occasionally asking a question. Nine o'clock eventually came.

"Alright y'all," Judy said "Time for church. Let's load up." We all headed out to the garage and loaded into Mike's truck and headed to church.

_Scotty's Point of View_

After the service was over we headed out into the bright sunlight.

"So what did you think?" I asked Rhiannon as we walked over towards my group of friends.

"It was really nice. I enjoyed it." She said back.

"Good, I'm glad. I didn't know what you would think since you're Catholic." I was kind of nervous that she would be uncomfortable.

"No, no! It was really nice. My family actually did go to a Baptist church for a while, bout three years or so." She told me.

"Really?" I said, "That's cool." We walked up to the group and stood there a talked for a while.

"Oh hey, Scotty. We gonna play a pick-up game of baseball later at the school. Gonna join us?" Kevin said to me.

"Yeah, that sounds great." I said. I hadn't been on the field in a while.

"Rhiannon you should come to. All of us girls go and watch." Sarah said to Rhiannon.

"Uh, yeah." She said looking at me. "That okay with you?"

"Of course it is." I said smiling at her. "Well we better get goin. We'll meet you at the field bout three?"

"Sounds good." They all said. We told them goodbye and heading to my dad's truck.

"Let's get home and get some lunch. I'm starving!" Dad said as we all got. "How bout some Bos?" We all agreed and headed to the restaurant. We stopped in and ate some lunch, then headed back to the house.

"Hey, Ash?" I said as we walked into the house. "You got some clothes Rhi can borrow? We are goin down to the field here in a little while to play some ball."

"Yeah I do. Come on," she said grabbing Rhiannon by the hand. "Let's go get you some."

When the girls headed upstairs I went into the living room to watch the Red Sox game with dad after changing into some shorts and a t-shirt.

"So," I heard him say. "You really like this girl huh?"

I looked at him and said, "Yeah, yeah I really do. A lot."

He looked at me, trying to tell if I was serious or not. "Well," he said, turning his attention back to the game. "It's a good thing you aren't touring this summer, huh?"

I hadn't even thought about that, but yeah, I couldn't have met her at a more perfect time. I was taking the summer off to work on new music for the next album and just to spend time at home. We watched the game for a little while longer. I didn't even notice the girls come into the living room until Rhiannon sat down next to me. She had borrowed an old Garner High School shirt, some shorts, and tennis shoes of Ashley's.

"You look good in Trojan gear." I told her patting her knee.

"Well thank ya." She said smiling at me. We continued to watch the game. I was surprised how into it Rhiannon was getting. Once the game was over, it was about 2:45.

"Alright, we better get goin." I said standing up. Rhiannon stood up too. We told my family bye, and headed out to the truck. As we drove to the field we sang along to the radio. It reminded me of the night we drove home from Ashley's friend's house, so fun and carefree.

When we pulled up to the field, everyone was already there. I gave Rhiannon a kiss before she headed off to sit with the girls in the stands. I walked onto the field, feeling at home in seconds.

"We got a problem McCreery." Jay said as I walked up to them. "We're short one guy."

"You serious?" I said.

"Yup. Travis had to go to his grandmas at the last minute and bailed." Steve informed me.

"Great," I said kicking the dirt. "Is there anyone else that we can call up?"

"We've tried a few people, but everyone already has plans or can't make it." Kevin said.

"Hey!" Carrie yelled from the stands. "I thought y'all were playin ball!"

"We're short a guy!" Evan yelled back. We heard the girls moan some. They seemed to be discussing something. Then, I heard the last thing I expected to hear.

"I'll play if you really need someone." Rhiannon yelled. We all looked at each other.

"We do need someone." Ryan said. "You know how to play?" he yelled at her.

"Yeah, I played softball when I was in school." She said standing up. Dang, I did know that.

"Your call McCreery, she's your girl." Ryan said to me.

"Alright, come on down." I yelled up to her. "We got an extra glove?" I asked Jay.

"Yeah," he said, then turned and said to Rhiannon who was jogging onto the field, "grab that glove out of the dugout."

She grabbed the glove and jogged over to us. "You sure you're okay with me playin?" she said to us all.

"Yeah," Ryan said to her. "It'll be fun to see if hillbilly has any game."

"Oh," she said pulling her hair into a ponytail, "I definitely have game."

"Alrightey then, well let's see. Me, Jay, Steve, and Scotty will be on a team. You, Evan, Kevin, and Chris will be on a team."

"Sounds good." She said, giving me a wink. "Let's play ball."


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

What in the world had I gotten myself into? They had stuck me at third; well, it was behind third seeing as how we only had four people on our team, three on the field and one pitching. I was doing okay so far, if the ball had come to me I was able to field it without completely messing it up and I had even caught one. It was my turn to bat and it was the last inning we were gonna play since it was getting dark.

Evan decided to give me a pep talk before I batted. "Alright hillbilly, last inning, two outs, we got two on, and we're down by one. You just need to get on base and drive Kevin in!"

"Evan, it's just a pick-up game." I told him rolling my eyes.

"Not when most of us have money riding on it." He said as he jogged off to the side. You have got to be kidding me, I thought as I walked up to the plate.

"Not gonna choke are ya Rhi?" Scotty taunted me from the pitcher's mound.

"In your dreams McCreery" I yelled back at him. He threw the first pitch and I swung and missed. Evan grabbed the ball and threw it back to him. The next two pitches I hit foul.

"Come on hillbilly! Strike out already so we can go home!" Steve yelled at me from first base. I took a deep breath and got into position. Scotty looked at me and winked before throwing the ball to me. As I swung the bat I could feel the power behind it. I took off for first and watched as the ball sail over the outfield fence. As I was running around second Evan ran up to me, threw me over his shoulder and carried me the rest of the way around the bases to home plate where the rest of my team was waiting.

"Woohoo! Yeah! Go hillbilly!" They all yelled as Evan put me down.

"Yeah, yeah. So she's pretty good. Big deal." Ryan said as their team joined us at home plate. Sarah and Carrie had joined us too. The guys exchanged the money that was owed. We all stood around talking for a little while longer. One by one people started to leave until it was just me and Scotty left.

"So," I said to him giving him a smile. "How did I do?"

"Eh," he said taking a step towards me, shrugging. "You did alright."

"Alright?" I said talking a step towards him too, until we were just inches apart. "The Cardinals are probably blowing my phone up right now wanting to sign me."

"Uh-huh, I'm sure they are." He said as he leaned down and kissed me. When he pulled away he said, "You did awesome by the way."

"Well thank you sir," I said wrapping my arms around his neck. As I was going in for another kiss, I heard the thunder crack through the sky. Before we could react the rain came pouring down. Scotty started to pull me towards the truck.

"No!" I said pulling him to a stop. He turned around and looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe I was, I didn't care though. I threw my arms apart and did a spin, letting the rain soak me thoroughly. I looked up at Scotty and saw him staring at me, smiling that heartbreaking smile of his and his bright blue eyes shining at me. "Dance with me Scotty." I said to him.

"Now?" he said.

"Yeah, now." I walked up to him, wrapped his arms around my waist, my arms around his neck, and laid my head against his shoulder. After a few seconds of swaying back and forth to the sound of the rain, Scotty started singing.

"_I cross my heart and promise to give all I've got to give to make all your dreams come true. In all the world, you'll never find a love as true as mine."_

At that moment I didn't care that my legs were covered in mud, or that my hair was a matted mess, or even that my mascara was probably running down my face. At that moment, I was completely, obliviously happy. I reached up and kissed him with as much compassion as I could muster up. He responded by kissing me back with as much compassion as I was giving. We pulled back and stared at each other. At that moment, I knew that I had completely fallen head over heels for Scotty McCreery.

We spent the next hour or so dancing in the rain and running around in it like two children. To soon though, I had to get home. We got back into Scotty's truck and I turned the heat on blast, already feeling the chill from the rain. He put up the middle console so I could sit in the middle by him. As he drove me back to Raleigh I felt myself drifting off to sleep. The next thing I knew, I felt someone poking me in the face.

I bolted awake, "Hey! What the-" I looked to see it was Nicki, not Scotty like I had thought. Somehow I had gotten back to my apartment already.

"Well hello to you too." Nicki said sitting back down on the couch.

"How did I get up here?" I asked her.

"Ole lover boy carried you up. Fell asleep on the way back and he said he didn't want to wake you. How sweet huh?" she answered me with the slightest bit of sarcasm. I rolled my eyes at her and told her goodnight, going into my room to change out of Ashley's wet clothes. Once I was showered and ready for bed, I crawled under my sheets. I looked at my phone and saw I had one new message from Scotty.

"Hey, you fell asleep in the truck. Looked so peaceful I didn't want to wake you. Somehow today was even better than Saturday have a good day at work tomorrow and I'll call you. Sweet dreams."

I shot him a text back before setting the phone back on its dock and falling quickly to sleep. That night, I had a strange dream. I was driving in my car with Scotty and we were singing to the radio. All of sudden I see a bright light ahead of us. I instinctively scream and shut my eyes. When I open them, look over to Scotty and he's gone. I shot up out of bed, panting heavily. It was just a dream, I told myself, just a dream.

_Scotty's Point of View_

"Had an even more amazing time today too I get off at four tomorrow or I take my lunch between 12-12:30 so you can call me anytime then. Let me know you got home okay, sweet dreams to you too."

I smiled at my phone as I sat in my driveway. I text her back, letting her know I got home fine, and then headed into the house. I was still kind of wet from the rain so I ran upstairs to change before I went back down to the living room where the rest of the family was.

"So Scotty," momma said looking up at me from her book. "How did the game go?"

"Good," I told her. "Rhi actually ended up playing cause we were short a guy."

"Really?" my dad said.

"Yeah," I said and told them how she hit the homerun over the fence.

"That's impressive." My dad said, "Like I said the first time she was here. Keep ahold of her."

"Don't worry," I told them. "I don't plan on letting her go anytime soon." Ashley gave me a thumbs up.

That night as I lay in bed I thought about what had happened. I thought about how Rhiannon had stepped up to help us guys out by playing and about our time in the rain. I was going to take her back to the truck because I thought girls hated being in the rain. But she surprised me by pulling me to a stop and asking me to dance with her. As we swayed back and forth to the beating of the rain, the song lyrics just came out of me without really thinking about it. When she looked up at me after I stopped singing she took my breath away. She was the most beautiful creature on earth. I was on my way to kiss her when she beat me to it. As we kissed, I realized I was no longer falling for her; I had already hit the ground and was head over heels for Rhiannon Freed.

The next day, I decided to surprise her on her lunch. I stood beside her car outside her work and waited for her to come out. When she did, her face lit up.

"What are you doing here?" she said after I gave her a kiss.

"Thought I'd take you out to lunch. That okay with you?" I said to her.

"Yeah!" she said. "That's absolutely fine. Where do you want to go?"

Scared that I was going to burn her out on Bojangles, we headed to a subway down the street. After we got our subs we sat down at a booth towards the back of the store.

"I used to work at a subway you know?" she said as we ate.

"Really?" I said

"Yeah, worked there while I was in school." She said.

"That's cool." I said nodding my head.

"So, I have a question." She said looking at me. I always got nervous when she said that.

"And what would that be?"

She took a drink of her sweet tea before asking me, "Are you touring this summer? Or what are your plans?"

Should've figured she'd ask me that. "No, I'm not touring. I have a couple shows I'm doing, but nothing real far away. I'm mainly working on new music for the next album."

"Oh, okay" she said smiling at me. "That's good. I'm ready to hear some new music from you."

We ate for the next couple minutes in silence, until we were interrupted. "Oh my gosh! You're Scotty McCreery! I LOVE your music!" A couple of girls who looked about seventeen walked up to our table.

"Well thank you" I said to them wiping my mouth off.

"Could we get a picture with you? Please?" one of them asked. I looked at Rhiannon who gave me a slight nod.

"Yeah that's fine." I said standing up. One of the girls handed Rhiannon her camera to take the picture with. After we took the picture, I signed a couple of napkins for them and they left.

"Sorry bout that." I said to Rhiannon. "People in Raleigh are usually used to me, but every now and then there will be a tourist come through that recognizes me."

"Oh, it's fine!" she said putting her hand over mine. "It's part of who you are, you can't help it."

"So you are really okay with girls going crazy over me?" I said raising an eyebrow at her.

"Yeah, I'm okay with it. As long as they keep their hands off you, I'm okay with it." She said, winking at me.

"So, now I have a question for you." I said to her.

"And what would that be?"

"When fans do come up to me, if you are with me and they ask who you are, how should I introduce you?" I prayed she'd say as my girlfriend.

She stared at me for a minute or two. Finally she said, "How bout for now, until we get to know each other a little better, as your friend."

My heart sank a little bit, but I had to agree. She was right. "Alright," I said as we stood up to leave. "Friends." We walked out the door and headed back towards her work. "But I'm still going to kiss you." I added as she laughed.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

_Rhiannon's Point of View_

The next couple of weeks passed by normally; Scotty came to have lunch with me every day and we went to the beach with his family over Memorial Day weekend. The weekend was a lot of fun. We would spend most of the day on the beach and then spend the night playing games with his family or his friends. During the week though, we would take turns having dinner at his house, having dinner at my house and eating out. The topic of whether we were officially boyfriend and girlfriend wasn't brought up again; it didn't really feel like we needed to say it. We knew what we meant to each other. Each day I spent with him was even more amazing than the day before.

It was June now and time for the CMT Awards. I had to do a lot of begging and offer to cook dinner for a week, but I got Nicki to agree to watch them with me. Scotty had originally asked me to go to Nashville with him, not as his date but just to be there with him. Unfortunately I had already put in for my vacation days, so I couldn't get off work.

"Come on Nick! The red carpet show is about to start!" I yelled into the kitchen. A couple minutes later she came into the living room with a huge bowl of popcorn.

"Alright, let's get on with this rodeo." She said sitting down next to me. We watched as the host of the red carpet interviewed different artists. Every now and then Nicki would make a comment on someone's outfit. Finally, Scotty came up for an interview.

"Shhhh! Be quiet!" I said turning the volume up.

"We have Scotty McCreery with us here now. Scotty how are you doing tonight?" Evan Farmer asked him.

"Oh, I'm doin good, doin good. How bout yourself?" he responded.

"I'm doing well thank you." Evan said back. "Now, you are nominated for Male Video of the Year with your video for Water Tower Town. How does that make you feel?"

"I'm pretty stoked about it. When we found out, me and my family were real excited, cause to me this is the most Scotty McCreery song on the album. So I was excited to get a video out for it, but to have it nominated is just unreal." Scotty said.

"Now last summer you toured with Brad Paisley, are you going to be touring this summer or what are your plans?" Evan asked him.

"No, this summer I'm just kicking back and relaxing. Might be working on some new music. You know, just relaxing in Garner." Scotty said back to him.

"And do you have a girlfriend back home that you'll be relaxing with?" Evan said nudging his arm.

"Uh," Scotty said rubbing his chin. "Yeah, yeah I do actually." My jaw and Nicki's hit the floor simultaneously.

"Well ladies," Evan said looking at the camera. "You heard it here, Scotty McCreery is no longer single. I think I just heard the hearts of millions of girls break." Evan finished, looking back at Scotty. Scotty just chuckled and when Evan thanked him for his time and wished him good luck he walked off camera.

"Did you know he was going to say that?" Nicki said after turning down the volume.

I was still speechless so I shook my head. Just then, my phone rang. It was Ashley.

"Hello?" I answered.

"Hey," she said. "Are you watching the red carpet?"

"Yes."

"So you saw Scotty's interview?" she asked nervously.

"Yup, sure did." I said back.

"Well, Scotty wanted me to call you and make sure you aren't mad at him. As he said 'I was gonna tell him no, but I just couldn't lie on camera'." She said imitating his voice.

I chuckled a little bit. "No," I said. "I'm not mad. Pretty shocked, but not mad."

"Yeah, that's what I told him, but you know him," she said laughing. "Always worried about whether or not you're happy. Well I gotta go, they're telling us to go inside to be seated. Enjoy the show." And with that she hung up.

"Well," Nicki said "Are you ready to have your relationship out in the open?"

"How would it be out in the open?" I said, taking a handful of popcorn. "He didn't even say my name."

"No, he didn't. But you know that reporters will be flocking Garner and Raleigh trying to catch a glimpse of 'Scotty's new girl' and then once they do, they will figure out who you are and then it will be out in the open." She said matter-of-factly.

"Oh," I said staring at the popcorn in my hand. "I hadn't thought of that."

"Yeah," Nicki said. "I know."

I thought about it for as the red carpet show ended and the main show began. We would be out in the open, and people would no doubtedly judge me and make up stories about us. But, somehow, I wasn't worried about it. Like Ashley said, Scotty was always worried about whether I was happy or not, so I knew he wouldn't let anyone hurt me. Just like I wouldn't let anyone hurt him.

"Oh well," I said popping some popcorn in my mouth. "We'll just take it day by day I guess."

_Scotty's Point of View_

After CMA Fest was over I was ready to get back home to Rhiannon. I hadn't won at the award show, but it was okay. I called her on video chat to make sure that she wasn't mad at me for outing us on air.

"Scotty," she said, rolling her eyes. "I already told Ashley I wasn't mad at you. Whatever comes happens because of you saying that, we'll deal with it together."

I smiled at her, "Okay, I just wanted to make sure. And you're right, whatever happens, we'll face it together."

As the plane landed on the runway I started getting excited. This was the longest I had gone without seeing Rhiannon since we met. After we got our luggage from the carousel, my family and I headed towards the entrance. Before we got there though, I spotted her. Rhiannon was standing in front of the entrance. I immediately started running towards her, dropping my luggage. Once I got over to her I grabbed her up in my arms and spun her around before setting her down and kissing her.

We finally broke apart and I looked down at her, "I missed you." I said to her. She reached up on her toes and kissed me again. "I missed you too." She said back to me, smiling.

After that, we spent every moment we could together. We didn't really run into any problems with our relationship being public. Every now and then we would spot a reporter trying to snap a picture of us or people would come up to us wanting a picture with the two of us. To my relief, Rhiannon seemed okay with it all.

About the middle of June I had a show to do. Luckily, it was on a weekend and Rhiannon could come with me. It was a county fair upstate. We arrived at the fair about mid-morning.

"Wait, what time do you perform?" Rhiannon asked me as we set up my stuff backstage.

"Not until seven. But I figured we could ride some rides and do fair-y stuff." I told her.

"Do I get fried oreos?" she said as she handed me my guitar.

"Hahahaha." I said laughing at her. "Yeah, if you want some, we'll get you some." She thanked me by giving me a kiss. We walked around the fair grounds. It took some persuasion, but I got Rhiannon to ride some rides with me. I even won her a stuffed bear from a carnival game. As we walked around I noticed people following us and taking pictures of us. There was one group of girls though, that I noticed were following us around the whole day. Where we went, they went. I tried my best to ignore them, hoping Rhiannon wouldn't notice them. She did though.

"I think you have a shadow," she said to me as we stood in line to get her oreos.

I turned around and sure enough the three girls were a few places behind us in line. "You mean 'we' have a shadow" I said to her.

"Babe, I'm not the one they are pointing at and swooning over." She said giving me a knowing look. I responded to her by giving her a deep kiss. I heard the girls behind us stop giggling. We got our food and headed back towards the stage to eat backstage. Once we got backstage, we sat down in my dressing room and ate.

"You know," Rhiannon said taking a bite of a fried oreo, "Me dating you may not be such a good thing."

I stopped mid-bite and stared at her. What was she talking about? Where did this come from?

"I say that because in the past month or so we've been together," she took a drink of her sweet tea, "I swear I've gained ten pounds with as much as you eat." She started laughing at me.

"That's not funny," I said to her, "and not true. You look fine, beautiful in fact."

She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. "Thank you" she said. We continued to eat, making small talk. Eventually my mom came into the room to tell me I had to go do a sound check. While I was up on the stage I saw the three girls from earlier standing outside the gates to get in. These girls are relentless, I thought. After the sound check was over I headed down to the dressing room to change into some stage clothes. Finally, it was time to go on stage. Before I headed out I gave Rhi a quick kiss before she walked away to go watch the show. I did my pre-show rocky dance and then headed on stage once I heard the music. As I did the show, I caught glimpses of Rhiannon standing off stage. It gave me confidence to see her singing and dancing to my songs.

"Alright, y'all still doing good tonight?" I asked the crowd who yelled back their response. "Alright that's good, that's good. This next song I'm gonna do is dedicated to a special girl that I know." The crowd responded with cheers and 'awwws'.

"_Our love is unconditional; we knew it from the start. I see it in your eyes; you can feel it from my heart." _

I sang the song, only looking at Rhiannon. She sang back every word to me. After the song was over Rhiannon blew me a kiss and I continued on with the show.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

_Rhiannon's Point of View_

I swear, I thought to myself, I could watch Scotty perform a thousand times over and never get tired of it. He had just finished his last song of the night. I sent him a text telling him I was running out to get us both a sweet tea, figured I would give him time to meet with some fans.

As I was standing in line to get the teas I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see the three girls that were following us earlier. "Can I help you girls?" I said to them.

"You're Scotty's girlfriend aren't you?" one of the said to me.

"Yes I am." I said to them. I stepped up and ordered our teas. Once I got them I started heading back towards the stage.

"Hold on!" I heard one of the girls yelled behind me. I turned and saw them running towards me. I stopped and waited on them.

"I'm Amber and these are my friends Chloe and Danielle." The tall blonde one said to me. "We were wondering if we could ask you a favor?"

"Um, sure?" I wasn't used to dealing with Scotty's fans on my own and I was nervous about what they were going to ask me to do.

"We left the show early because we had to use the bathroom and they wouldn't let us back in. We were wondering if you could get us back into the stage area so we can take a picture in front of the stage." Amber said to me.

"Oh, yeah I can try. I don't see why that wouldn't be okay. Come on." I led the girls back to the entrance and explain what happened to the security guard. He told us it was okay, but that I had to stay with the girls. We walked down the aisle toward the stage. When we got to the stage the girls stood in front of it as I took their picture. They did a couple different poses then asked to take a picture with me. We asked a nearby security guard to take it for us.

"So where are you girls from?" I asked them after we took the picture.

Chloe answered me, "New York, but we're on vacation down here."

"Yeah," Danielle piped up, "we heard Scotty was performing here so Amber's parents let us come."

"I'm a _huge _Scotty fan." Amber said with a twisted smile. Uh-oh, I thought, this isn't good. "Hey," Amber said, "I have one more favor to ask you."

"Amber don't" Chloe pleaded.

"Quiet!" Amber fired back. She turned back to me. "I was wondering if maybe you got get Scotty to come out here and meet us."

About that time my phone went off, it was a text from Scotty.

"Where you at with those sweet teas, sweet-ty ;-)"

I answered back and told him about the girls, leaving out them part about him meeting them. "I'm sorry girls," I said to them. "But I really have no control over that."

"What do you mean? You _are _his girlfriend, right?" Amber said to me.

"It's no big deal," Danielle said from behind Amber. "Thank you for getting us in here to take the pictures. Amber," she said grabbing the girls elbow, "let's go"

"No," Amber said shaking her off, still staring me down. "If you're really his girlfriend you can get him out here to meet us."

"No, I can't. I think it's time you girls leave." I said turning around to walk away.

"I don't know what he sees in you anyways." Amber yelled after me. I stopped.

"Excuse me?" I said turning around.

"I said, I don't know what he sees in you anyways." She said to me crossing her arms. I walked back over to her. "All you are is just some short little girl. You are nothing compared to me."

"Amber!" Chloe and Danielle yelled at her.

"It's true. I mean, look at her." She said motioning to me.

"Are you kidding me?" I said. "You are going to insult me because I can't get you back to meet Scotty?"

"No," she said rolling her eyes. "I'm insulting you because you deserve it."

"Wow," I said shaking my head. "Grow up a little bit kid." I started walking away until I felt Amber grab my arm.

"You better get Scotty out here right now! Or so help me I'll-"

"You'll what?" I cut her off. "Listen, pulling this immature spoiled brat bit isn't convincing me otherwise."

"Oh yeah?" she said raising an eyebrow at me.

"Yeah." I said.

"Well maybe this will convince you." She said with an evil smile.

Then I felt something wet spray across my dress.

_Scotty's Point of View_

After I got Rhiannon's text about being upfront with the three girls I figured I would go out there and surprise them. As I neared that gate that separated backstage to upfront I heard an unfamiliar voice. "You _are _his girlfriend, right?"

"It's no big deal" another unfamiliar voice said. I poked my head around a stack of speakers to see what was going on. I saw the back of Rhiannon and her facing three unfamiliar girls. I listened as Rhiannon told the tall blonde girl she couldn't get me to come out front. I also listened as the girl insulted Rhiannon. They went back and forth for a while, Rhiannon even tried to leave a couple times. Then, all of a sudden, the tall blonde knocked the sweet teas in Rhiannon's hands onto her, drenching the front of her dress.

"HEY!" I yelled as I ran around the speakers. "What's going on here?" Once I got over to the girls I stood in front of Rhiannon, blocking her from the girls. One of the other ones stepped in front of the blonde as a couple of security guards ran up.

"We are so sorry Scotty! We thought we were just going to come down here to take a picture and then Amber asked Rhiannon about meeting you and we tried to get her to stop but-" I held my hand up to cut the girl off.

"I know, I heard it all. I think it's time you all leave. Now." I said to the girls. The security guards escorted the girls out. I turned around and wrapped my arms around Rhiannon.

"Are you alright?" I asked her.

"Yeah, I'm fine." She said, looking up at me then bursting into tears. "Scotty, I'm so sorry! I should've never even brought them in here! I just felt bad for them and all they wanted was picture in front of the stage and-" Her sobs became too bad for her to speak.

"Shhh. It's okay" I said as I wrapped my arms around her again. "You didn't do anything wrong. Nothing wrong at all. Come on, let's go backstage and see if we can find you something else to put on."

We went back stage and she changed into the clothes I had worn earlier. When she came out of the dressing room she was still sniffling from crying. "Rhi, look at me" I said lifting her face so she was looking me in the eye. "You didn't do anything wrong. That girl was the one who was wrong. She should've accepted it when you said no the first time. And I'm with you because you are absolutely the most amazing girl in the world. You are kind and sweet and beautiful and strong and I can't even think of words to describe you because you are so amazing."

She went up on toes and little bit and kissed me. "Thank you. I am sorry though." She said.

I rolled my eyes at her after she apologized again. "No more apologizing." I said giving her a quick peck on the lips. With that, we left to head back home.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

_Rhiannon's Point of View_

The rest of the month of June passed by in a haze. Scotty would come and visit me at work on my lunch and we would spend every last second together on the weekends when we could. I had gone with Scotty and his friends to the beach for the fourth of July. I even got Nicki to go with us.

"So did you have fun?" I asked Nicki after we got back.

"Eh, I guess so." She said with a shrug. I raised an eyebrow at her.

"Really?" I said. "Because I could have sworn I saw you sneaking off with Ryan once or twice."

"Yes you did." she said throwing a pillow at me. "And I yes I did have fun. I have a question for you though."

"And what would that be?" I said.

"Has Scotty-boy dropped the 'L' word yet?" Nicki said to me.

"Um," I said as I got up and walked into the kitchen. "No, he hasn't."

"What?" she said following me. "You're joking right?"

"No, I'm not." I had thought he was about to a couple times, but we were interrupted.

Nicki stared at me, looking me straight in the eye. "What?" I said chuckling. "What so wrong with the fact he hasn't said it yet?"

"I just don't see why he's taking so long. He should've said it long ago." I shook my head at her. "I'm being serious; you never know what could happen."

"You're being silly." I said to her.

"No, I'm not." She said folding her arms. I shook my head at her again as I went into my bedroom.

A few days later Nicki and I were finishing up dinner when my phone rang. I looked at the caller i.d. to see it was my boss. "Hello?" I answered.

"Miss Freed! How are you this evening? Am I interrupting anything?" my boss said.

"Oh, no sir, you aren't! What can I help you with?" It was very weird that he was calling me after work like this.

"Well I wanted to talk to you about something. You know that a few weeks ago we started construction on the Garner branch. We plan on opening in a couple of weeks."

"Yes, sir. I remember you mentioning that in the meeting." My stomach started doing flips.

"I was wondering if you would be interested in transferring to the Garner branch once it opens. I want my best people there and you are one of the best I have. What do you say?" he asked.

I tried to keep my cool. "Yes, sir! I would definitely be interested in that. I would love it in fact."

He laughed, "Yes, that's what I thought. We'll talk more about it tomorrow. Have a goodnight."

"Yes sir, you too. And thank you!" I hung up the phone and told Nicki.

"That's great! Scotty will be happy." She said as she gathered up the dishes.

"Yeah he will! I better call and tell him." I picked my phone up and called Scotty.

"Hello?" he answered.

"Scotty! I have some amazing news to tell you." I told him.

"Great, what is it?" he said eagerly.

"Actually," I said, "Would you care if I came over? I'd rather tell you in person. Plus, I'd like to spend more than half an hour with you."

"Yeah, yeah, that'll be cool. Momma will be glad to see you. She was just asking when the next time you're coming over will be." He said.

"Great. I'll head over right now then. See ya in a few!" I said giving a little squeal of delight.

"This must be some news." Scotty said with a chuckle. "See ya in a few."

I hung up the phone, gathered up my purse and headed out the door telling Nicki bye. As I drove out of Raleigh I scanned the radio stations. I finally found a station that had a familiar voice coming through.

"_They smile that smile. They bat those eyes…" _I sang along, thinking about how I would be working so close to Scotty now. I heard my phone go off in the seat next to me as I neared a curve. I glanced at it to see what it was. Ugh, I thought, just a baseball update. As I threw the phone back onto the seat, I looked back up to the road and saw headlights coming right towards me as I rounded the curve.

_Scotty's Point of View_

"Are you sure she said that she was leaving right when she hung up?" my dad said from his recliner.

"Yes, I'm sure she did. She said 'I'll head over right now then'" I told him for the hundredth time. It had been over two hours since Rhiannon had called. She should've been here by now.

"Did you try calling her?" Mom asked.

I rubbed my hands over my face. "Yes, momma. About thirty times and she hasn't answered at all. I even tried her roommate but she didn't answer either."

"Alright" Dad said getting out of his recliner. "How bout I give the sheriff a call?"

I nodded my head as I fell back onto the couch next to momma. "I'm sure she's fine sweetheart." She said as dad talked to the sheriff. "She probably just got a flat and doesn't have service."

"Alright, Tom said he was gonna said one of his guys out Garner Road to see if he can find her and that he would give us a call back." Dad said after he hung up the phone.

I nodded my head at him. About fifteen minutes later there was a knock at the door. I ran and answered it. It was the sheriff, Tom.

"Scotty, I'm gonna need you to come with me. Now." He said.

"What's going on?" Mom said from behind me as I put some shoes on.

"We found her out on Garner Road. Let's go Scott." I ran out the door behind him to his police car. I saw mom, dad and Ashley getting in my truck to follow us. Tom sped out of town with his lights on and siren blaring. Once we were a few miles out of town I saw lights flashing up ahead. As we got closer I saw about three or four police cars, an ambulance, and a fire truck. When we stopped I ran from the car towards the crowd and yelled Rhiannon's name. Tom led me through the crowd towards the ambulance. Once we got there I saw the worst sight in my life. Off the curve, down in the ditch was Rhiannon's upside down car. There were police officers, firefighters, and emts surrounding the car cutting the driver's door off.

"What happened?" I yelled at Tom.

"We're not sure. From what we can tell she lost control and went into the ditch." He told me. As he told me they pulled Rhiannon from the car and put her on a stretcher. They carried her up the embankment and loaded her in the ambulance. I climbed in behind them and rode along. As we speed into Raleigh they worked on Rhiannon. Her eyes were closed and she hadn't moved. I grabbed her hand and started rubbing the back of it.

Once we got to the emergency room they unloaded her and we ran inside. I tried to follow them but they stopped me at a set of doors. "I'm sorry sir, but you can't go past this point." And she ran through the doors leaving me standing there alone. A few minutes later my family ran into the waiting room. They started asking me a million questions about her.

"I don't know what is wrong with her. When we were in the ambulance though, she wasn't moving." I looked my mom in the eyes and lost it. I broke down in her arms like a little boy. "She was so still, Momma, I couldn't tell if she was ali-"

"She will be fine Scotty." She said cutting me off. All of a sudden Nicki came running into the waiting room.

"Where is she? Where's she at Scotty?" she said running up to me.

"They have her back in surgery." My dad said. "I just spoke with one of the nurses and they said she is I surgery but they couldn't tell me anything else."

Nicki turned to Ashley, "Thanks for calling me by the way." Then she turned back to me. "I called Rhi's mom. She's flying out from Missouri as soon as she can."

We sat there for what seemed like days. When the sun started coming up, a woman walked into the waiting room. My heart stopped for a second because I thought it was Rhiannon. Then, I realized that she was a little taller than what Rhiannon is and that she was older than her too. I walked up to her as she stood at the reception desk.

"Mrs. Freed?" I said to her, this had to be her mother.

"Yes?" she said looking at me in confusion.

I extended my hand out to her. "Hi, my name is Scott McCreery. I'm Rhiannon's boyfriend."

"Oh, you're the boy she's talks about non-stop when she calls." She said giving me a smile. "Have you heard anything on her recently?"

I shook my head. "No ma'am, we haven't." I led her over to where Nicki and my family was sitting and introduced them to her. We all sat down and waited.

All of a sudden Rhiannon's mom sighed, "You know," she said looking at me, "growing up, Rhiannon never had to go to the doctor. She never had a broken bone, was never seriously sick. Health-wise, she was the perfect kid." She gave a half-hearted chuckle. "But that's Rhi for ya, when she does something for the first time, she does it big."

"Yeah," I said giving a half-hearted chuckle too. "First time we went bowling together, she got a spare or a strike every single time in the first game. After that, she was lucky to keep it in her own lane."

Mrs. Freed sighed, looking up to the ceiling. "Yup, that's my daughter." Then she looked back at me. "She'll be fine, you know?"

"How do you know?" I said looking back at her, feeling tears coming back to my eyes. "She was just so still in the ambulance, and so…so…" I buried my face in my hands.

"Because I know Rhiannon." She said rubbing my back. "And I know she would never do anything to hurt anyone. And she knows that if she leaves us, it'll hurt us. So, she won't do it. I know it sounds silly, but it's true. She's stubborn in that way."

I looked back up at her and sighed. "Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm still worried though."

"I know sweetheart, me too." She said giving me a reassuring smile. It was a mirror image of all the ones Rhiannon had given me over the last few months. We sat there for a few more minutes in silence until Nicki came over and sat next to me.

"How you holding up?" I asked her.

"Like crap. They need to tell us something before I completely flip my lid." She said with anger in her voice.

"Rhiannon is gonna be fine." I said. I had been replaying that line over and over in my head all night.

"She better be. Or, or, ugh, I don't even know. I don't even want to think about it." She said leaning back against the chair looking at me. "She loves you, you know that? She loves you and the stupid girl was too chicken to say it. I told her. I friggin told her."

"What?" I said to her.

"You heard me. I'm going to get a soda." She said before stomping off. I thought about what she said. Rhiannon loved me? What? I was pretty sure I had loved her since I first laid eyes on her over a year ago, but I never dreamed she'd feel the same way. I wasn't exactly ideal boyfriend material, with the whole fame thing.

I mulled this over in my head until a nurse walked up to us. "Are you all with Rhiannon Freed?"

"YES!" we all practically screamed before launching it how is she's and where is she's. The nurse held her hand us to quiet us. "She's out of surgery and we have her in a room. Only three of you can see her at a time though." We decided that her mom, Nicki, and I would go. We followed the nurse to the room. When we walked in and I first noticed Tom standing at the foot of her bed, then I saw her.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

_Scotty's Point of View_

"Hello Scotty" Tom says as we walk into the room.

"What are you doing here?" I ask him.

"I came to see if Rhiannon was awake to see if I could get any info as to what happened." He tells us.

"Well did you?" I hear Nicki say from behind me.

"Some," he says. "She was still kind of loopy from the anesthesia. I'm sorry but I can't go into the details since it's an open case. But once she wakes up she can tell you." The three of us walk over to the bed after he leaves the room. I go on one side of her while Nicki and her mom go on the other. I take a good look at her as she lay sleeping. Physically, she looked fine besides the cast on her wrist. There was a small cut on her forehead and few more cuts on her arms. I picked her hand up and kissed the back of it.

"What is wrong with you?" I say to her.

"I think I can answer that." I hear a voice say. We all look to see a doctor walking over to the bed. "I'm Dr. Richland." He says as he shakes all of our hands and we introduce ourselves to him.

"So what's wrong with her?" Mrs. Freed says.

"Well, let's start with what you can see. On the outside, she just has a few cuts. The ones on her arms with probably scar, but other than that the others will heal up just fine. And with her wrist, she had a couple broken bones in that, but that will heal fine as well. On the inside though, is a different story. The impact from the wreck caused her appendix to rupture, so that had to be removed. She also had several cracked ribs. A couple of them splintered off which was our main concern. But, we removed them and set the cracked ones." He tells us.

"That's it?" I say.

"That's it." Dr. Richland says with a smile.

"Then why the hell did it take so long?" Nicki yells at him.

"It took so long because we had to run test to make sure she had no head trauma or anything else seriously wrong. If you want my complete honest opinion, from what I heard about the wreck and how she was found, she shouldn't have lived. Even from her going that amount of time with a ruptured appendix should have at least made her seriously ill. Right now she's on morphine so she will probably sleep for a while. When she does wake up though please let one of the nurses know." He tells us before walking out of the room.

"I told ya." I hear Mrs. Freed say. I look at the beautiful girl lying on the bed. Thank you Lord, I pray, thank you for not taking her from me.

"Scotty?" Nicki says.

"Yeah?" I say, not taking my eyes off of Rhiannon.

"Your family is at the door." She says. I let out a sigh, not wanting to leave Rhiannon's side. But, I know my family wants to know what is going on with her. I stand up, giving Rhiannon a kiss on the forehead and walk to the doorway.

"How is she?" my mom asks.

"She's doing good. Nothing is seriously wrong with her. She's sleeping right now." I then tell them everything the doctor said, even the part about how she shouldn't have lived.

"Well obviously she was supposed to if she did." Ashley says. I give small chuckle and agree with her.

"We're going to head on home then since she is okay." Dad says. "Call us if you need anything or if anything changes. We'll be back by later to visit." I give them all a tight hug, thanking them for being here with me. I walk back into the room and see Nicki sitting on a couch flipping through the tv and Mrs. Freed over by the window talking on the phone. I walk back over to Rhiannon's bed and sit in the chair next to it.

"Okay," Mrs. Freed says putting her phone into her purse. "That was Rhiannon's dad. I told him that she was fine. I was able to get a couple more days off from work so I can stay out here a little bit longer."

"Yeah, I got off work for today too." Nicki says.

"Well, I don't work, so I won't be leaving here until she does." I tell them.

"That's what we figured." Nicki says rolling her eyes at me. "I'm gonna run down the street and get us all some food." I stare at her as she leaves the room, shaking my head. I pull out my phone and look at the time, 9:15 am. It had been over twelve hours ago that Rhiannon called to tell me she was coming over. A little bit later Nicki came back with food.

"Hey Nicki," I say to her after we ate.

"What?"

"Last night when Rhi called me, she said that she had something to tell me. Do you know what it was?" I ask her.

"Oh, yeah, she was headin over to tell you something wasn't she?" she says suddenly remembering. "She got a call from her boss last night telling her he was transferring her to Garner."

I shake my head and look back at Rhiannon. "You couldn't have waited to tell me that today?" I say to her sleeping form. We sit there for a little while longer and I start to feel my lack of sleep catching up to me.

"Scotty honey if you want to sleep you can." Mrs. Freed says to me.

"No, it's alright." I say shaking my head. "I wanna be awake when she wakes up."

"Scotty, you look like you're about to pass out. Go on and go to sleep, we'll wake you us when she wakes up." Nicki says.

I have to agree with her, I could pass out. I finally agree, but still refuse to leave Rhiannon's side. Pulling my chair up closer to her beside, I grab her hand without the cast on it. I give it one last kiss and hold onto it as the sleep over comes me.

_Rhiannon's Point of View_

The first thing I notice once I start to wake up is pain. There is pain in my chest and pain in my wrist. But, on the other hand I feel a familiar warmth that almost over powers the pain. After the pain, I notice music. I hear Luke Bryan singing somewhere. Then, I hear my mom's voice. Hearing her voice, I know better open my eyes to see what is going on. I open them and see that I'm in a hospital room. I start to wonder how I got there, and then I remember the wreck. I closed my eyes as the image of what happened came back to me. The headlights that were coming toward me belong to another car that had gotten in my lane. I tried to swerve to miss them, but lost control and went rolling down into the ditch. I look around the room and see Nicki sitting on a couch watching CMT and my mom next to her. I look down at my wrist that's hurts and see the cast. On the other side is a sleeping Scotty holding my hand.

"Oh good, you're awake." I hear my mom say. I look up to look at her but am met with Nicki running over and throwing her arms around my neck.

"Nicki, chill!" I say as I feel her soaking my gown with tears.

"Don't you ever scare me like that again!" she says after she pulls away. "Don't ever scare Scotty-boy like that again either. Speaking of which, we are supposed to wake him up when you wake up."

"No, let him sleep. He probably needs it." I say looking down at him. My mom comes over to me and kisses me on the top of the head.

"He does, he stayed up all night. We only finally got him to go to sleep a few hours ago." She says. "I'm gonna go get a nurse and tell her you're awake."

"Nicki?" I say as my mom walks out of the room. "Why are you watching country music videos? You hate country music."

"Well you like it." She says flipping her hair. "And I figured if you woke up to something you liked, you won't be as uncomfortable."

"Oh, well. Thank you." I say, a little surprised.

"Don't be so shocked. I know I'm a cold-hearted person, but I do take care of the people I love." She says standing up.

"Well I love you too." I tell her as a nurse walks in. The nurse checks a couple of my vitals and asks me if I'm in any pain. I tell her a little so she leaves to get me some more morphine.

"You guys should go get something to eat." I tell my mom and Nicki. "I know y'all haven't left the hospital at all." It took and little arguing but I finally got them to leave. I felt weird just having them sitting there. Not soon after they left, Mike, Ashley, and Judy showed up. They asked me how I was doing and brought me some flowers.

"How long has he been out?" Judy says pointing at Scotty.

"A few hours. He's gonna be mad at me though when he wakes up." I say.

"Why would he be mad at you?" Mike says.

"Because I was supposed to wake him up when I woke up. But I know him, and I know that he probably hasn't slept since yesterday morning." I say with a chuckle.

"Well how else do you expect the boy to act when the girl he loves is in a car wreck?" Ashley says.

"What?" I say staring at her.

"Nothing!" Judy says. "We'll go ahead and go so you can wake Scotty up. Glad you're okay sweetheart." They all tell me goodbye and leave. Scotty loves me? What? I had to get to the bottom of this. I removed my hand from his and started rubbing his cheek.

"Scotty? Scotty? Wake up." I say gently. He starts to stir a little so I say his name a couple more times.

"What? What's going on?" he says all of sudden bolting up with a worried look on his face.

"Nothing!" I say grabbing his hand.

"Rhi? You're awake? When did you wake up?" he says sitting back down.

"I woke up a couple hours ago, but you looked peaceful so I didn't want to wake you." I tell him.

"Oh," he says grabbing my hand again. "How do you feel?"

"Eh, I've been better." I say trying to keep it light.

"I was so worried about you." He says bringing my hand up to his lips. "I thought I was going to lose you there for a little while." I see tears start to form in his eyes.

"Oh, no sweetie. You could never lose me! I couldn't hurt you that way." I tell him.

"Rhiannon, I-" he starts to say.

"What?" I say when he doesn't continue.

"Never mind."

"No, not never mind. What were you going to say?" I demand. He looks me in the eye and then moves to sit on the edge of the bed and looks at me.

"Rhi, I thought I was going to lose you. And the thought was killing me, absolutely killing me. I can't imagine what my life would be like if you weren't in it. From the moment I met you last year, I thought you had to be the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Then, when you showed up on my doorstep back in May, I knew it wasn't just coincidence, it was fate. I love you Rhiannon. I do, I love you."

I had imagined in my head, what it would be like to have him say that he loves me. But all the imagining in the world couldn't have prepared me for it. I grabbed him around the neck, pulled him to me and kiss him. I kissed him with everything I had and he kissed me back with everything he had. When we pulled apart, I looked into his bright blue eyes, "I love you too."


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

_Rhiannon's Point of View_

I was out of the hospital a couple days after I woke up, Scotty never my side, except once when I made him go home to shower, he was starting to stink. Nicki hardly ever left either. My mom had to leave after I was released unfortunately.

It had been a month since the accident now, the cuts healed up, the pain gone, except that ugly cast. Scotty was still nervous to let me drive on my own, so anywhere I went, he drove me or got Nicki to drive me.

"You know you're gonna have to eventually let me drive again." I tell Scotty one day as we get to his house for dinner.

"Yeah, just like I'm gonna give up singing." He says with a laugh.

I grab his arm and give him a serious look, "I'm serious Scotty."

"So am I." he says back.

"What's gonna happen when you start classes back up? Or when you go back on tour?" I say to him. He doesn't say anything back.

"That's what I thought. Look, I know you're worried about me and I love that you are. But, you gotta loosen the reigns a little bit cowboy. Tomorrow, I'm driving myself to work." I tell him with a smile.

He gives a heavy groan. "Ugh, okay. Fine. But you better call or text me before you leave and the same when you get there. Deal?" he says extending a hand out to me. I shake it and we walk in to have dinner with his family.

Time goes on, and I eventually get my cast off. Life returns to how it was before the wreck, except for the fact that Scotty is slightly more protective of me. I can't complain though, I find it cute sometimes. Summer soon turns into fall and Scotty returns to school. We see each other a little less than what we are use too, but somehow it makes our relationship stronger. One day in November, I come home from work and find Nicki standing in the living room with a big smile on her face and bags at her feet.

"You going on a trip?" I ask her.

"Nope," she grins. "But you are!"

"What?" I say staring at her. "Where?"

"Sorry, I can't tell. But don't worry, you already have time off work for it and your bags are already packed. Just go change into something comfy and I'll take you to the airport." She tells me. She knows I hate surprises. I go into my room and change out of my polo into a t-shirt and light jacket over it. Knowing that Scotty probably has something to do with this I pull on a pair of sweats I had borrowed from him a couple weeks ago. After I changed I walked back into the living room and we were off. Nicki took me to the airport where Scotty met me at the security checkpoint.

Once Nicki was walking away after telling me bye I turned to Scotty. "Alright Scott Cooke McCreery, you better tell me right now where we are going."

"Um, how about no?" he says with a smile.

"Well what if I refuse to go?" I say putting my hands on my hips.

"See, I don't think you'll do that." He says smugly. To prove my point I set my bags on the ground and crossed my arms.

"Oh yeah? And what makes you so confident about that?"

"Because," he said stepping closer to me and wrapping his arms around my waist. "I want you to go with me and you'll go with me because you love me." Before I could answer he crushed his lips against mine and kissed me deeply.

Once we pulled away I let out a sigh, "Fine, I'll go. But I'm gonna sulk until I find out where we are going."

He let out a laugh as he picked up my bags, "That's good enough for me."

We went through security and found our terminal. Once we sat down I began looking around to figure out where we were going. I heard Scotty laugh as I looked around. I looked at him and found him looking at me. "Hey, control that laughter McCreery. Or so help me I'll walk right out of this airport." I say shaking my finger at him. He responded by pretending to zip his lips close and throwing away the key.

Eventually I heard over the speaker "Flight 723 from Raleigh to Nashville now boarding" I ignored it since I had been hearing those for a while, until I saw Scotty stand up.

"We're going to Nashville?" I said to him once we found our seats on the plane.

"Yup." Scotty said to me checking his twitter.

"What for?" I said to him, still confused.

He looked up at me from his phone. "You seriously don't know?"

"No! I don't!" I said throwing my hands in the air.

"Hey, hey, calm down." He said taking my hands in his. "I'll go ahead and tell you, well, ask you I guess cause I don't want you to get upset again."

I took I deep breathe, "Okay, what do you need to ask me?"

"Rhiannon Freed, will you be my date to the CMA Awards?"

I stared at him for a minute. What? He wanted me to walk down the red carpet with him? At the CMA Awards? Was he high?

"What?" I said to him. "Really?"

"Yes really!" he said smiling at me.

"But, but…I don't even have a dress."

"Yes you do, Nicki picked it out for you and I approved it so it's more your style and less hers." He said still smiling at me.

I leaned back into the seat and turned my head to look at him. I could see worry starting to creep onto his face. "You know that this could be a total disaster? And that I could make you look like an idiot? Or that I could trip on the red carpet?"

He let out a light laugh, "Yes, I realize those are possibilities. But, I know that you will be absolutely perfect also."

I shook my head at him. "You are absolutely crazy Scotty."

"So is that a yes?" he said eagerly.

I leaned up and kissed him lightly on the lips as the plane took off. "Yes, it is a definite yes."

_Scotty's Point of View_

"Come on Rhi! The limo is waiting!" I checked myself in the mirror one last time to make sure my suit looked okay.

"I'm coming! Calm your horses!" I heard her say. I turned around to see her coming out of the bathroom. My heart stopped for a minute as I looked at her. The dress was a dark grey color and clung to her curves perfectly. It had short sleeves on it and reached the floor. There was small silver belt that sat on her hips. Her hair and make-up looked like she stepped right out of the 1940's with the red lipstick and loose waves. "What?" she said. "Is something wrong?"

"No," I said shaking my head slowly. "You look…you look…I can't even begin to describe how beautiful you look right now."

She rolled her eyes, not believing me. "Whatever, let's go. We're gonna be late." She started to walk to the door but I grabbed her wrist to stop her. "What?" she said turning around to look at me.

"We aren't leaving here unless you admit you look breathe-takingly beautiful." I said putting my hands on her hips, pulling her towards me.

"Scotty…" she said shaking her head. I gave her a stern look. "Fine, I look beautiful. Can we go now?"

I lightly kissed her on the cheek and led her out the door to introduce her to my world.


End file.
